IGN: Fragile impressions

[alfredofroylan]

The good

The event sequences for these character encounters have been a bit over the top, with lots of crying and forced emotion. It's total bait for a laughable localization unless handled with extreme care. Regardless, if there's one thing that's making me stick with Fragile, it's to find out who Seto will meet next and how the story will develop. Outside of the item memory sequences, the game does some interesting things with flashbacks and camera work to help tell the story. It's kept me involved for the first few hours.

Thankfully, combat appears to be de-emphasized in comparison to the the adventuring parts of the game, at least during the first five hours. I have yet to encounter a lengthy "dungeon" sequence where I had to fight hoards of enemies. And while I have taken a number of cheap hits from enemies, I haven't gotten close to dieing yet; I haven't even needed to use a health item once (although your life is automatically restored at a bonfire). I presume the difficulty was balanced to make up for the control shortcomings.

All of this could change as the game progresses. But I'm satisfied with Fragile staying just the way it is. A unique story and interesting cast of characters has kept me playing this far and will hopefully keep me playing until Seto finally makes it to that red tower far to the East.

 

The bad

The control scheme in Fragile is set up similar to how one might make an FPS on the Wii, with the Nunchuck analogue stick moving your character around and the Wiimote being used pointer style to control your viewpoint and rotate your character around. You can't look up and down unless you lock yourself in place and switch to a first person viewing mode, but this isn't too much of an issue.

The control and camera systems work fine in wide, expansive, enemy-free areas. But get into a situation that demands precision, and the shortfalls become clear. When attempting to navigate tight corridors, like the isles of a library for instance, the camera appears to get confused about what you're pointing at, resulting in some headache-inducing stuttering as the view snaps back and forth. Getting in close with an enemy also makes things tough, as it's hard to keep moving enemies in your view.

With a variety of weapons, each with unique combo attacks, Fragile's battle system had potential to be at least passable as far as adventure games go, but the poor controls make combat more a game of luck than skill.

The Namco

Fragile is another one of those Japanese releases where it's pretty clear that someone in the marketing department decided to stick the word "RPG" on the box for sales purposes. Your character levels up, but aside from that, there's really nothing RPG about the game.

I'm actually not sure how to describe Fragile, as it's such a unique experience. However, in my five hours of play time with the Japanese import, which just saw release on Thursday, I've come to see what may be an overall flow to the game

http://wii.ign.com/articles/947/947807p1.html

For me sounds good, I'm into this game for the artistic direction and the exploration more than the combat.