Idea Factory is no stranger to ports, famously (in that niche sort of way) using the Vita to revitalize the Neptunia series and moving on to Steam with apparent success. Last summer, I covered Fairy Fencer F’s Steam version, and liked it a lot! It was a straight port of the PS3 version as far as I could tell, largely making the game more accessible and fixing the unfortunate stability issues. Just under a year later, here we are with a shiny new PS4 port, with a shiny new sub-title. Fairy Fencer F: Dark Advent Force is…basically the same game, and my old review serves a useful purpose in introducing the game proper. However, Dark Advent earns its new pedigree with a nice facelift and some great new content.

As a fan of the game before, the first thing I noticed is how much better Advent Dark Force actually looks. Keep in mind, this is very much a lower-budget JRPG. But, there is a significant difference on PS4. The resolution is obviously higher, and the framerate is silky smooth, but there’s also a little extra oomph, a spit-shine if you will. The colors seem denser, the edges on the models less rough, and there’s a slight blur/bloom to everything that suggests some more fine-tuning than I expected. The second thing I noticed was pushing the L2 button makes your character dash forward, but it’s kind of awkward and doesn’t really achieve the intended effect so I didn’t bother to press it again.

One key addition to Fairy Fencer F: Advent Dark Force is that the party size has doubled. That’s awesome. Fairy Fencer F is all about furthering Idea Factory’s dance with in-battle customization, and doubling the number of characters available at once blows that wide open. To repeat myself from my previous review a bit, the appeal in this game lies in how much you can tinker. 

Grinding “Weapon Points” is slow, but the ability to decide each move in your combos, with branching differences and a plethora of skills, on top of the different Fairy cards further tweaking stats, is rewarding. Being able to do that with a larger party size, letting you play with even more of the genuinely appealing cast without having to bench so many is great. I can get lost in this game for hours, just grinding and tinkering in anime perpetuity.

Finally, Fairy Fencer F: Dark Advent Force has additional story paths. The game sits in the usual Idea Factory JRPG/Visual Novel wheelhouse. It had multiple endings before, and now it has more. Usually the best one can hope for in a port like this is better performance and a few bells and whistles. Full branches of additional story content are fancy toppings on an already pretty loaded cake. I, for one, am very satisfied. 

Hint: Boost the number of hits in your combo as soon as possible, and load up with air launchers and follow-ups. Bonus damage!

by Lucas White