tl;dr mid game both in gameplay and plot, with good enough models and music.
Now, onto the detailed review:
Having not played the first Portable Guild, I got this mainly because of the classic fan fantasy of making your own character that gets to have fun with characters from the series; Xenoverse had a nice way of doing it and I felt Shinobi Strikers failed to do it, so having it for Fairy Tail, my first "serious" shonen series, was important to me.
Shame the game was extremely mid.
The idea of your character is that they go to Magnolia specifically to find the Fairy Tail guild, which they join after helping Lucy and Natsu fight some monsters.
The gameplay is very simple, reminding me of Monster Hunter without any of the depth; a pivotal part is the team composition and who you choose to bring as party members, but it got boring veeeery fast.
Other than the gameplay itself mid, the story is not great: released in 2011, Portable Guild 2 has none of the later, in my opinion better arcs of the series; there's a reason the 2020 game starts with the Grand Magic Games Arc (the Tournament Arc of the series) and goes through the Tartaros Arc and a bit of the Avatar Arc, which are much more interesting in my opinion.
All of these arcs were not in the manga at the time the game was created and so it uses the arcs of early Fairy Tail; some, like the Sub Zero Emperor Lyon Arc or the Phantom Lord Arc, are actually very good arcs, but having a game end with the Fight for Fairy Tail Arc, an arc I believe is actually very weak, made it not so great.
I would have much more liked a side adventure where your created character meets the Fairy Tail wizards in between the later arcs OR between the end of the manga and the start of the 100 Year Quest.
Now, onto the detailed review:
Having not played the first Portable Guild, I got this mainly because of the classic fan fantasy of making your own character that gets to have fun with characters from the series; Xenoverse had a nice way of doing it and I felt Shinobi Strikers failed to do it, so having it for Fairy Tail, my first "serious" shonen series, was important to me.
Shame the game was extremely mid.
The idea of your character is that they go to Magnolia specifically to find the Fairy Tail guild, which they join after helping Lucy and Natsu fight some monsters.
The gameplay is very simple, reminding me of Monster Hunter without any of the depth; a pivotal part is the team composition and who you choose to bring as party members, but it got boring veeeery fast.
Other than the gameplay itself mid, the story is not great: released in 2011, Portable Guild 2 has none of the later, in my opinion better arcs of the series; there's a reason the 2020 game starts with the Grand Magic Games Arc (the Tournament Arc of the series) and goes through the Tartaros Arc and a bit of the Avatar Arc, which are much more interesting in my opinion.
All of these arcs were not in the manga at the time the game was created and so it uses the arcs of early Fairy Tail; some, like the Sub Zero Emperor Lyon Arc or the Phantom Lord Arc, are actually very good arcs, but having a game end with the Fight for Fairy Tail Arc, an arc I believe is actually very weak, made it not so great.
I would have much more liked a side adventure where your created character meets the Fairy Tail wizards in between the later arcs OR between the end of the manga and the start of the 100 Year Quest.