A Poetic RPG Adventure
Nowadays, the world of gaming is a multi-million and multi-billion-pound industry.
For instance, the credits on your average Assassin’s Creed game will last about 30 minutes, as they look to list all the thousands of people who were involved in making each game.
But honestly, I think people who are not into gaming still imagine that all these games are being made by teenagers in their bedrooms. Of course, there are still some exciting small teams of developers at work, and some who even work solo.
Jack Astral is one of these, having made the game Faye Falling. Let’s see what it is all about.
From Death to Destiny
Faye Falling works as a top-down, turn-based RPG adventure; a game that has an engaging and poetic narrative. You are someone who has recently died, however you can’t remember anything about your life or how you got to where you are now. You land in a mysterious world, where an encounter with a strange entity puts you on a quest to defeat an evil shadow across this land.
I very much feel as if I am making this game sound much simpler than it really is. But on the whole, the writing and world-building are more opaque and stranger, with some life reflections on death and loss along the way.
Maze-Like Memories
You meet a host of strange characters, like floating smiley creatures or a trio of lost angels, as well as bits of your memories coming back as you travel further into the game. I like this kind of storytelling; a narrative which focuses on atmosphere and visual cues, leaving the player to go about trying to put the pieces together as they go along, rather than being handed everything on a plate at once.
Of course, in Faye Falling, you can choose to make decisions along the way that make you evil or good, and that will unlock different endings.
Combat with a Twist
The gameplay reminded me straight away of playing on a Game Boy, especially in the way Faye Falling is put together and presented. You control your little hooded figure across the top-down maps, making your way to items or points of interest to activate or unlock them. Exploration takes you across maze-like maps with triggers and strange magical seals to open that require a good memory of where you have just been.
And as progress is made in Faye Falling, extra abilities come to the fore, helping you get through certain barriers, like an early-game dash move that lets you morph through certain obstacles.
Combat is next up and this plays as a turn-based affair but with a twist. When an enemy attacks you or you encounter one, the first thing to do is escape its initial attack. This triggers a minigame where you have to dodge missiles hurtling towards you, with many variations of that minigame appearing. If you escape, you can normally perform a counterattack.
In the turn-based game, you have a spell attack and a normal attack, and then all sorts of items you can use to get rid of hexes or increase your power. These battles are great to start with, but over time, I did start to get a bit weary of them.
Retro Charm and Poetic Power
The visuals are basic, but at times very beautiful. It’s obvious that the developer has pushed right up to the limit of the toolset to hand, perfecting it in the process. Faye Falling has that old-school Game Boy feel to it, with its top-down magic and turn-based action. Its use of fades and cuts in how it’s presented is so filmic and works perfectly.
Alongside that, the soundtrack is very impressive, coming together to be delivered as a pretty great score that adds to the gameplay and the story perfectly.
An Impressive Indie RPG
To be honest, I didn’t know what to expect when starting Faye Falling, but I was pleasantly surprised, and it hooked me from beginning to end. It has a great tone and a story that is engaging, at times poetically mournful. The exploration side of Faye Falling and seeing what happens on this epic journey is where the heart of the game lies, and whilst the turn-based combat is good, harking back to old-school gameplay, I lost interest in it after a while.
For the most part though, Faye Falling is a great experience and an extremely impressive game.
Important Links
A Lost Soul, a Growing Darkness… Can You Recover Your Memories in Faye Falling? – https://www.thexboxhub.com/a-lost-soul-a-growing-darkness-can-you-recover-your-memories-in-faye-falling/
Buy Faye Falling on Xbox – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/faye-falling/9P4RLGFK4R3K/0010
