Neopets: The Darkest Faerie
Cons: Dreadful camera; the visuals sputter fairly often; platform elements are a chore; most of the gameplay elements are banal
Following in the footsteps of Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh, Neopets is the latest craze featuring adorable little creatures out to do battle. With a wildly popular website that lets you create a virtual pet, a trading card game, and an animated series, it was only a matter of time until these critters hit the videogame world. While Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh have had success, Neopets falls short. The Darkest Faerie is a below average game that will only satisfy the most ardent Neopets fans, which is a shame because the game could have been much better with additional development time.
Zelda…for Dummies
The Darkest Faerie is a third-person action-adventure game that blends exploration, fighting, and puzzle elements. It's very much like a poor man's version of Zelda--really poor--as in third-world country living in a straw hut poor. You get to play as two characters: Tormund (a knight in the making) and Roberta (a magically gifted vixen). You get to switch between the two characters as they (eventually) attempt to save the world from an evil power that threatens all of Neopia.
Early on in the game, you're introduced to the basic mechanics as Tormund helps his family with chores via simple fetching quests. In addition to the main plot points, there are a lot side quests that involve finding something or killing something for someone. You're also introduced to the game's stuttering graphics and awful camera, both of which make the platforming sections of the game more laborious than they ought to be.
Thankfully, combat is a bit more fun. As you can imagine, the knightly Tormund vanquishes his foes with sword attacks, while Roberta dispatches enemies with her magic wand. The two can bolster their weapons and armor with motes, cute little elemental smiley creatures. Motes come in several varieties, including fire, ice, water, smoke, grass, and the like. Certain enemies are weak against certain motes, which adds a strategic element to the otherwise basic combat.
When you add the gameplay elements together, you don't get a whole lot. If executed properly, The Darkest Faerie could have been a solid game that would potentially expose Neopets to new people. Instead, it panders to (and pretty much takes advantage of) fans that can't get enough of the adorable Neopets universe.
Not as Cute as it Should Be
Visually, Neopets is bright and colorful, using a simple art style that reflects the property. Technically, the graphics are basic and in some cases deficient. While the stylistic plainness of the environments is understandable, the sputtering graphics are not. There's way too much chugging going on here and it hampers the gameplay and is inexcusable considering how simple the graphics are. Don't let any screenshots of this game fool you. Things look bright and happy when they're still, but when this game gets moving it's an entirely different story.
Another technical deficiency rears its head randomly throughout the game in the form of load times. While you're prancing around the various environments, it's not uncommon for there to be a several-second pause as more of the environment loads. Considering how far games have come with streaming, this is pretty unforgivable. There's nothing complicated happening onscreen and there's certainly no reason to wait for it.
On the plus side, the game shines in the sound department. The voice acting is good and the music is surprisingly great. The game's cutscenes, while pretty standard from a visual standpoint, are brought to life with quality voice acting. The most outstanding aspect of the game is its music, which adds to each environment and is fun to listen to.
Beware of Pet
When it comes down to it, The Darkest Faerie plays like a Zelda knockoff and looks like a Spyro ripoff. Save for the mote system, there really isn't anything interesting going on, which would be fine if the execution were better. Technically, the game is lacking, and in some cases, just plain sloppy. It's a shame more effort wasn't put into Neopets: The Darkest Faerie. It has the ingredients to be a really fun game, but many things have gone wrong as it was being baked. Only the most forgiving Neopets fans will like this game.