A simple little game that, although it can suffer from its small scale, still manages to satisfy as a bite sized experience.
+2DS
i used to speedrun this game years ago and felt like revisiting it. super charming, especially because i love retro zelda games. figuring everything out was a bit challenging, but i still never felt the need to look anything up. i'll definitely buy and play the full collection soon.
Shows that the core concepts of 80s RPGs like Hydlide and Xanadu still have some life left in them as long as you make them just a bit less abrasive to play.
Juego de chocarse por la acera.
To some, Hydlide's redemption. To me, a reminder of what already worked. Revived-lyde, if you will. /dadjoke
Nostalgia is a fickle thing to design around. Lean too hard on it and your game's core will collapse under the pressure of memories. Promise but under-deliver and you'll turn players off in due time. Fairune isn't a lot more than polished pastiche-cum-homage, but I believe it takes the premise of 1984's Hydlide & adjacent games to near its limits. All the old elements are here, just refined for a newer, more critical audience.
Yes, once upon a time in a land not so far away, game fans got a lot of enjoyment from the most basic of adventures with stat progression. Hydlide took its essentials from Tower of Druaga, placing that game's schoolyard secrets manifesto into a home play venue. This makes it difficult, if not frustrating to play today for anyone expecting what most consider intuitive design. That said, I think too many dismiss not just what Hydlide accomplished in its time, but how elegant it was & still is. Sure, you're bumbling around an overworld & dungeons looking for any possible hint towards progress. But in this way, it succeeds in mixing the classic adventure, puzzle, & dungeon crawling genres, creating a journey both timely yet archetypal.
If Hydlide's the role-playing adventure that canon forgot (or too quickly disqualified), then Fairune's the rejuvenation of all T&E Soft's game represented. I had so much fun traversing this small but detailed land, uncovering its oddities and flowing from one power tier to the next. Here, the nostalgia comes less from simply aping its predecessors, hoping for an easy connection to players. Rather, the excellently presented fantasy world & tropes convey a kind of pre-Tolkein fiction, both celebrated & demystified. Out with the enigmatic solutions, in with the peeling skin of what Hydlide sought to achieve.
The final boss becoming a classic arcade shooter is a bit too cute, though. (Even considering Hydlide creator Tokihiro Naito's own penchant for STGs, this was too on-the-nose.) And the game can only immerse you so much into this primordial high fantasy structure without iterating on its mechanics the way Fairune 2 does. But I think Skipmore's original throwback ARPG is a panacea for any discussions revolving around Hydlide & its place in game design history. The original J-PC game made a critical leap from Druaga's coin-feeding gatekeeping to a more palatable, individualized experience you could still share with friends & other gamers. Fairune recaptures the novelty, strangeness, and sekaikan that Hydlide's fans felt in the mid-'80s, just for today's players.
Even if I much prefer the sequel for how it posits a world where Hydlide's sequels didn't overcomplicate themselves to ill end, there's every reason to replay the prequel. Do yourself a favor and try this out for size. It might have you thinking twice about laughing off proto-Zelda examples of the genre.
Nostalgia is a fickle thing to design around. Lean too hard on it and your game's core will collapse under the pressure of memories. Promise but under-deliver and you'll turn players off in due time. Fairune isn't a lot more than polished pastiche-cum-homage, but I believe it takes the premise of 1984's Hydlide & adjacent games to near its limits. All the old elements are here, just refined for a newer, more critical audience.
Yes, once upon a time in a land not so far away, game fans got a lot of enjoyment from the most basic of adventures with stat progression. Hydlide took its essentials from Tower of Druaga, placing that game's schoolyard secrets manifesto into a home play venue. This makes it difficult, if not frustrating to play today for anyone expecting what most consider intuitive design. That said, I think too many dismiss not just what Hydlide accomplished in its time, but how elegant it was & still is. Sure, you're bumbling around an overworld & dungeons looking for any possible hint towards progress. But in this way, it succeeds in mixing the classic adventure, puzzle, & dungeon crawling genres, creating a journey both timely yet archetypal.
If Hydlide's the role-playing adventure that canon forgot (or too quickly disqualified), then Fairune's the rejuvenation of all T&E Soft's game represented. I had so much fun traversing this small but detailed land, uncovering its oddities and flowing from one power tier to the next. Here, the nostalgia comes less from simply aping its predecessors, hoping for an easy connection to players. Rather, the excellently presented fantasy world & tropes convey a kind of pre-Tolkein fiction, both celebrated & demystified. Out with the enigmatic solutions, in with the peeling skin of what Hydlide sought to achieve.
The final boss becoming a classic arcade shooter is a bit too cute, though. (Even considering Hydlide creator Tokihiro Naito's own penchant for STGs, this was too on-the-nose.) And the game can only immerse you so much into this primordial high fantasy structure without iterating on its mechanics the way Fairune 2 does. But I think Skipmore's original throwback ARPG is a panacea for any discussions revolving around Hydlide & its place in game design history. The original J-PC game made a critical leap from Druaga's coin-feeding gatekeeping to a more palatable, individualized experience you could still share with friends & other gamers. Fairune recaptures the novelty, strangeness, and sekaikan that Hydlide's fans felt in the mid-'80s, just for today's players.
Even if I much prefer the sequel for how it posits a world where Hydlide's sequels didn't overcomplicate themselves to ill end, there's every reason to replay the prequel. Do yourself a favor and try this out for size. It might have you thinking twice about laughing off proto-Zelda examples of the genre.
Fun little adventure game, it's not hard at all but still an enjoyable enough experience.
Totally worth 2€. The simplest RPG i know, where the only thing you do is walk around, knew how to be entertaining with some nice puzzles and a good atmosphere and music. Nothing really outstanding, but as I said: totally worth 2€
Cute little puzzle game :3
i realized while playing that this game has Atari 2600 controls. I'm not sure how that affected the experience.
when i was a kid, i hated this game more than i have ever hated a game in my life. and i’m not sure why. it’s purposely emulating VERY old rpgs, no combat just walk into enemies and take damage, and it makes the game feel like it’s going through the motions but the puzzles can be headscratchers and the game is quite pretty
I only played like because i scrolled down a list of vita game blindfolding and this is what i landed on. I had no clue wtf this game was. That being said, this game isnt very good. Its short, theres like 2 buttons, gameplay is nothing. Its plays like a shitty zelda game where you dont even swing the sword. you have to grind. i could go on but this game did not make me care enough to say more.
[Reviewing the version from the Fairune collection]
Can't believe they made Hydlide good.
Fairune is an extremely short RPG that plays like Hydlide or the original Legend of Zelda on the NES, the game is really straightforward as there's barely any input required, the enemies are automatically defeated and automatically drain one or two HP for you and fill your XP bar which when leveled up you get to kill new enemies and get more HP. The only actions you can do in this game are to walk and use an item you found via the inventory and that's all, you don't need much for a basic puzzle-action game, some may find this a bit too basic but I really enjoyed figuring out the puzzles and not having to worry much about the combat is somewhat nice, though after a while you'll have to grind a specific type of enemy to unlock another so you can advance onward and it can be a bit annoying if they didn't wanted us to combat why force grinding then?
Other than the unnecessary grinding this game is well made and it's hard to fuck up a 2-hour long game. I do recommend this game for anyone who likes old-school RPG or something more modern like 3D Dot Game Heroes.
Can't believe they made Hydlide good.
Fairune is an extremely short RPG that plays like Hydlide or the original Legend of Zelda on the NES, the game is really straightforward as there's barely any input required, the enemies are automatically defeated and automatically drain one or two HP for you and fill your XP bar which when leveled up you get to kill new enemies and get more HP. The only actions you can do in this game are to walk and use an item you found via the inventory and that's all, you don't need much for a basic puzzle-action game, some may find this a bit too basic but I really enjoyed figuring out the puzzles and not having to worry much about the combat is somewhat nice, though after a while you'll have to grind a specific type of enemy to unlock another so you can advance onward and it can be a bit annoying if they didn't wanted us to combat why force grinding then?
Other than the unnecessary grinding this game is well made and it's hard to fuck up a 2-hour long game. I do recommend this game for anyone who likes old-school RPG or something more modern like 3D Dot Game Heroes.
It's a pretty short action-rpg that's inspired by games like the original Zelda with bump combat reminiscent of the early Ys games or Hydlide. Nothing special, but a good way to spend an afternoon.
Gets boring pretty fast, and has no depth at all. It's okay as a time waster at most.
It's a cheap and fun little distraction. Some things are way too obscure, but the game is over all fun.