Fairy Bloom Freesia

Developer: Edelweiss
Platform(s): PC (Windows) - 7.99€
Genre: Action

Made by Doujin developer Edelweiss, Fairy Bloom Freesia is a game reminiscent of old-school action sidescrollers. The base idea here is that you control a fairy (Freesia) and fight off incoming waves (or in this case, a rain) of enemies in forest-themed environments in an attempt to protect said forest.

Fairies don't get cold.

Once upon a time….

So it’s a simple game with a simple story: Freesia lives in the Lita Forest and does her best to protect it from both creatures and humans, who both threaten it. Freesia “has a very strong fairy-fu” and is friends with the ancient Jomon Tree, which holds a great power and keeps the forest alive. Starting here, the story revolves around how freesia defends the forest and the challenges and enemies she will have to overcome when the humans come and attempt to take the power possessed by the Jomon Tree to themselves.

Ore ni makasete!

The story mode is comprised of a series of levels (“Days”) and in each one freesia must defeat all the onscreen enemies to be able to progress. Each enemy gives freesia experience, mana and some others drop health restoring baubles. Every 3 levels there is an intermission which acts as a checkpoint, since you can only save your progress during these, and at the same time, it gives you a chance to spend your hard earned mana in new skills or special moves. All of these are pretty easy to use and the control system is pretty simple. More skills will unlock as Freesia levels up (by gaining experience) and there are several types of skill you can buy. Let me exemplify:

If used correctly, certain enemies may be used to help you get rid of other enemies.

I played using an Xbox360 Controller, so my special skill button was Y. From here I have four slots for four special skills which are used by tapping one of the cardinal directions on the analog stick (or d-pad) together with the Y key. The other buttons are for simple attacks, guarding and jumping. Guarding at first is simple at first, but as you face stronger enemies you will have to learn how to use it more efficiently since you can only guard against a certain amount of damage at a time.

In addition, you have 2 bonus slots which you use to equip enhancement skills. Like for example a simple boost to Freesia’s maximum health, or a regeneration ability, which continuously and slowly regenerates your health (good for longer levels for example) or others like, for example, an ability that increases Freesia’s damage output the lower her health is or one that instantly fills your health up when it reaches zero just once, giving you a second “life”. There are many to choose from but only 2 slots, so you might want to change those depending on what kind of level you are trying to clear. Some of these abilities are one-time buys (you buy it and that’s it), but most have several ranks and require you to spend more mana on them so they reach their full potential.

Thoughts

Time to check our progress.

The first thing that comes to mind is that character names are awful. Freesia is acceptable, but Shinye sounds weird and Listine sounds like mouthwash. The design isn’t bad though, and the characters are likeable enough. The scenarios are decent but not great in number so they eventually become repetitive as you go through level after level after level without anything changing around you. The enemies have the same problem, there’s only a handful of different ones, which you will be facing ad nauseam in waves.
The difficulty is pretty solid, especially if you play on Cruel mode and the extra modes are challenging as well and require some practice, especially the levels where you have to defend the rifts. It took me quite a while to get past some of them in Hard difficulty, but after that when I went into Cruel I already had the tactics down so it was easier. The bosses are challenging as well, at least until you learn their attack patterns. From there on you can avoid damage completely as long as you are careful.
That being said, I liked the game, it was all about frenetic fun and slashing through endless hordes of enemies, levelling up, gaining new skills and going through the story. If you want a decent and challenging button masher (heh), you might want to get this one.