Check out this Fragile Dreams Review from Zentendo
Fragile: Farewell Ruins of the Moon Review
Announced some time ago, Fragile for the Wii has garnered attention from gamers on the system for a variety of reasons, one being that at the time of the announcement there was hardly any support for the system from third parties for core games. Secondly, the title looked pretty good graphically, which was not a surprise coming from the developers of Baten Kaitos and Eternal Sonata. Third was its unique premise that was, and still is, unlike anything really seen in a game before.
Released late last month in Japan, Fragile: Farewell Ruins of the Moon tells the story of Seto, the last living human on earth. Seto lives alone in an observatory. At the start of the game he discovers a letter written by someone in the back room. Setting out, he discovers girl atop a crumbled building singing under the moonlight. Startled, the girl runs away after their first encounter, and so begins Setos journey through the abandoned countryside as he makes his way towards the girl and Tokyo Tower.
Graphically the game is pretty good, though there are obvious shortcuts that can be found if you look close enough. It's nothing earth shattering for the system, but the art direction really helps the game hold up. The locations of the game are all taken from video and photos the development team took from abandoned areas of Japan that were left after the second world war due to radiation levels. Instead of being an artistic interpretation of the end of the world, like Fallout, the game world is based off actual areas of human abandonment where over time, rust and plant life has slowly overtaken the human structures. Littered throughout the game world is graffiti and artwork left by those who vanished. Unfortunately, most of it is all in Japanese.
Fragile Shopping Mall
The music is, in a word, gorgeous, mostly focusing on piano compositions and book-ended by a vocal opening and ending theme. The music is both beautiful, somber, and haunting. You couldn't ask for a more fitting soundtrack to the game. However, a lot of the game is actually devoid of music, leaving the player completely immersed in the quiet abandoned ruins of the world.
The gameplay is mostly consisting of the player exploring the world and ruins, looking for clues and finding artifacts of the people who vanished. Seto is always carrying a flashlight, which is aimed with the Wii remote. You can crouch with the C button on the nunchuck, and center the camera with Z. You can zoom into first person with the B trigger and while that's held down you can even examine closer with the A button. One of the more peculiar quirks of the camera system is that even when in first person, you can only move the camera with the IR focused on the edge of the screen. It becomes even more tricky if the IR pointer is off-screen: it wont move at all, so it requires careful precision to keep the pointer focused just right on the edge of the screen to move it. Another problem with controls are those of Seto himself. While nowhere near Resident Evil clunky, Seto will always face in the direction of the flashlight, meaning he will always face wherever on the screen the IR remote is pointing in front of him. This makes turning around more a of a chore then it needs to be. It would also have done wonders for the game to have a "roll" or "dodge" maneuver.
The game world is not totally empty -- plenty of feral animals and evil spirits haunt the remains of the world. In keeping with the immersion factor, Seto attacks with whatever weapons he can find, sticks: Bokuns, lead pipes, golf clubs, or even katanas if you're lucky. Similar to Mushroom Men, there are four weapon types: Melee, Stabbing, Bludgeoning weapons like hammers and axes, and shooting weapons. Also in keeping with the realism, your weapons can break like in "Dark Cloud" for PS2. While realistic, it's also a tad bit annoying. Save points are represented by fire pits you find. While at a fire pit you can access your briefcase. While you have a small inventory screen you can access at all times, you also have a a briefcase that will hold all extra items you put in there. After you have found him, you will find a weird merchant living in the remains of a, amusement park guest costume. He will show up seemingly randomly at save points which you can trade items and cash you found in for new weapons and healing items.
Fragile Hotel
Namco has not expressed interest in translating the title for America, and while that is a damn shame, when playing the game you start to understand why. Graffiti text on the walls which helps give you clues would require a lot of retexturing to make them in English. Also, the game is highly dramatic. Every non gameplay item you find in the game has a story to it, retold simply with a picture of the object and voice over of the persons moment in their life related to that object. The game focuses largely on the emotions and feelings a person goes through in their life, mostly on feelings of loneliness and finding someone to share your life with. It's all pretty high concept, and It would take a serious amount of time and effort to get it just right dubbing it into English.
That said, XSeeD has taken an interest in the title, and if sales of another Namco title XSeeD has localized ("Retro Game Challenge"), are good enough, then XSeeD might hopefully get a chance at localizing "Fragile: Farewell Ruins of the Moon" as well. Provided XSeeD or Namco does localize it, I would make some suggestions. 1) Don't bother dubbing the game in English. It would take time and money, likely not come out as well as the original, and most gamers would opt to switch it back to Japanese anyway. 2) Try to get Tri Cescendo to iron out the control kinks. A simple rolling maneuver would save a lot of headaches, especially later in the game.
Fragile Train
Tri Crescendo has proved themselves as one of the most interesting and innovative game developers around today, at least from a purely premise standpoint. Their first two games were with monolith software, Baten Kaitos 1 and 2. Then they went solo and created Eternal Sonata, a game about the life and struggles of Composer Frederic Chopin as told through a fantasy like fever dream on his deathbed. Now they indulge the Wii with the help of the Venus and Braves team with a game about finding companionship among the abandoned ruins of the world as the last human on Earth. Whatever their next title is, it's almost assuredly going to be another wild take off the beaten path of game plots. While their gameplay isn't always the greatest, their ideas and creativity are something to stand up and take notice of. The game industry is all the richer for having them around. America has been fortunate enough to see their first three games, so it would a real shame to see this one forgotten about. A title as unique as this one deserves to be played by as many people as possible.
Final Verdict - 8/10
The presentation and story are absolutely top of the line, but the core gameplay is simply mediocre. Combined, the game is still a unique experience unlike anything else on the market. Beating it probably won't be a problem for those unfamiliar with the language, either. The core part of the game, however -- its themes and story -- will be utterly lost. The game deserves to have a chance in America. Hopefully someone will take up the torch soon and not let the game be forgotten by time.
Here is the link
http://www.zentendo.com/reviews.php?articleId=519&page=1
Also, check out these impressions of Fragile Dreams
http://nintendonow.e-mpire.com/index.php?categoryid=9&m_previews_action=displaypreview&id=28&gameid=1164
http://www.destructoid.com/preview-fragile-dreams-164563.phtml
http://wii.gamezone.com/gzreviews/p38342_02.htm
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=it&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spaziogames.it%2Frecensioni_videogiochi%2Fconsole_nintendo_wii%2F10003%2Ffragile-dreams-farewell-ruins-of-the-moon.aspx
They all praise the storyline, atmosphere, art style and music.
