If I see that chicken man again, I’m going to scream!

Don’t you just hate it when a game screaming potential from the opening sequence is ruined by poor gameplay decisions, short-cuts in level design and it residing on a platform of which control system makes for it being a rather cumbersome affair at times? I know I do, and this isn’t the first time this has happened on the Wii, well it’s happened again I’m afraid. In Rising Star Games latest quirky and atmospheric title, Fragile Dreams.

Big wolfy bastards!

For those a fan of manga/anime the first thing that will draw you in about this post-apocalyptic world is the fact that Tri-crescendo have done an absolutely stunning job at creating a CGI music video leading to the games beginning, it’s simply beautiful both visually and the singing is pretty charming too. So, what is the game about, well it’s one of those games that likes to lead you in and have you finding the answers as you progress. You play a 15-year-old boy called Seto (you can tell this is a Japanese survival horror/adventure right) who’s just done burying an old man whom he lived with, you start to wander and search for more survivors in particular a silver haired girl. What proceeds this is a journey that touches upon the boundaries of love and loneliness, not wanting to spoil the plot for you, I’ll leave it at that.

Unfortunately for you, the world is now full of ghost spirits and mangy creatures that wish to do you harm, whether it be decapitated girl ghosts or for some reason ghost jellyfish. The combat will leave you fray and vulnerable at times, as your weapons only stem from torches, butterfly nets and bamboo sticks. Seto didn’t have much luck in the weapons department and this results in repeatedly tapping the A button hammering things to death. The most endearing factors of the game are different items you can collect, which reveal memories and expand the plot and when you are above ground the game looks beautiful. The other big draw point for the game is the fact that the cut scenes are beautiful, it’s just a shame you have to dig deep within your human patience to be rewarded with these segments.

Most of the game is this dark

In between the maze of similar looking miles of corridoors and staircases the game does offer some unique effects, such as having a robotic pal whom is a glorified risk assessor and tells you about potential dangers lurking. At intervals in the game the Wiimote’s internal speaker will be used to gain help from your audio guide and generally throw in some nice mini-event set pieces, such as using the speaker to ascertain where invisible ghosts are. It’s a nice touch. The uninspiring combat system in the game leaves much left to be desired and unfortunately even the inventory system is convoluted and stupidly complicated. Thanks to the games genius system of only having a small inventory space, you’ll often be using every save point to switch your broken weapons for new ones, and removing and adding items from your briefcase. This wouldn’t be such a problem if your weapon didn’t break all the time, but it does. Why does your weapon need to break anyway? A stupid gameplay mechanic that needlessly wastes the players time in sub-menu’s.

Fragile Dreams attempts to explore the RPG genre in this survival-horror game, when I say survival horror I do not mean blood, guts and gore, more paranormal events and ghosts and general use of unnerving audio at times. The RPG elements are shallow and whether they thought the inventory system and weapon threshold would add a layer of velvet to the game they were sorely wrong. In fact, levelling up seems to do nothing more than make your opponents harder to kill. Even Too Human a game widely panned as being shit beyond words had a more in-depth RPG system attached to it. Graphically the game is attractive, though I only hoped more events took place outside, as the grimey and grungey interiors of most of the places you venture through are often poorly lit and reak of having the same textures used throughout. So much so, I managed to get lost inside the train station at one stage, not helped by the hand drawn map.

More stairs to climb, ffs!

There is an undeniable charm about the game though and in terms of the voice acting, some say that the English dub was was unbearable, I happen to disagree, in fact I think the English dub had some great voice acting that really had you caring for the characters involved, except for that stupid chicken head man. You may wonder what the hell I am going on about, well because the game is featured in a nightmarish crossing over world, you’ll often come across a stow-away man who collects nothing but crap and sells it on, this is the games way of settin up a trade and buy system, but don’t expect many decent items until later on, just plenty of food items and basic weaponary. It’s a character in the game I’d ideally liked to have missed, upon the first time of seeing him it’s funny, but at nearly every save point. You just want him to be turned into a chicken nugget.

Just brushing on the game controls, having to constantly control the torch and left and right turning with the wii-mote is somewhat of a chore, especially when playing the game in long spellls, this system is also annoying when fighting in narrow rooms. Oh did I mention the re-spawn of enemies as well? No? Well you only need to be away from a certain area for a minute and they are back, annoying, especially when you have broken your weapon, rendering you helpless but to go back to a open fire and save the game and play around with your sodding briefcase. Fragile Dreams just doesn’t cut the mustard, the game wants you to love it but you simply cannot through it’s mindless flawed gameplay techniques and repetitive set pieces that just have you operating in a zombie like fashion until you finally get to see another glorious cut scene, such a shame as the storyline is really very good. If you have the staying power for these games then it maybe worth the put, but for those looking for a story at a decent pace, you simply won’t find it here.