Folklore is the closest to living in a fairy tale you'll ever get. Everything that you can see oozes magic which immerses you into the fairy tale-esque world of Folklore, while avoiding the general clichés that most fairy tales suffer from.

After recieving a letter from her supposedly dead mother, Ellen travels to the Irish village of Doolin in search of her. But there is more to the story than once thought, as every resident in the village is hiding a dark secret that somehow connects to Ellen's mysterious past.

At the same time, Keats, a journalist on the paranormal, is sitting at his desk as he recieves a phone call from a woman screaming for help and telling him to come to Doolin. Hoping to get a good story for his magazine, Keats heads to the village of Doolin.

These two strangers soon meet, and after some unexpected circumstances, they travel to the Netherworld. The Netherworld is an afterlife based on Celtic mythology, where supposedly, the living can meet the dead.

You can tell from the start that Folklore isn't the heavily clichéd happy-happy type that is present in most fairy tales. And as the story is the star of the show, this is a refreshing tale to hear.

While the story is the best part about Folklore, this doesn't mean that the gameplay has been set aside for second best. You'll spend most of your time fighting magical creatures, called folks, that are littered throughout the Netherworld, and the rest of your time doing detective work in the village of Doolin.

Combat consits of mapping previously defeated folk to one of the face buttons and then summoning it to fight for you in battle. Every time you attack a folk, a blue "id" pops out of it. When the folk is near death, the id turns red. When this happens, you can suck the souls right out of the folk thanks to some ingenious motion sensitive work. Once the folk's id is yours, you can now summon it in battle.

To suck the folks soul, you hold R1, which lets your character grab ahold of the id, and then flick the SIXAXIS controlller upwards to suck it in. Some of the tougher folk make it harder to suck their id, so you'll need to weaken it, by using the SIXAXIS to bash it against the ground, for example. This makes action very fast paced, and it never breaks up the fluidity of the combat.

You'll need to experiment with your folks if you wish to succeed in Folklore because some of the creatures you'll face are tough, and some folks will be more effective than others.

You can play as both Ellen and Keats, who are seperated by chapters. For example, you can play chapter 1 as Ellen, and if you wanted to, you can go back and play it as Keats to get another side of the story. The two characters don't differ too much gameplay wise. The main difference is that Ellen summons the folk, while Keats takes on the physical form of the folk. This does make repeating the same dungeons twice tedious, but each character has different folk to collect, which breaks up the repetition.

Technically, it isn't pushing the limits of the PlayStation 3, but artistically, it is absolutely gorgeous. Colourful worlds just ooze charm and magic, while the creatures are inventive and look deadly. Doolin looks very mysterious, and actually feels like you're traversing a normal Irish village. It all adds to an immersive experience.

The main quest is heaps of fun to play, and will take you around 10 hours to complete. There are plenty of sidequests which will add around 5 hours to the game. Unfortunately there is little reason to go through the game a second time, unless you want to soak up the tremendous story again.

This means that if you don't want a story heavy game, then Folklore isn't the best choice for you, as long cutscenes and lots of dialogue are riddled throughout each chapter. But for those that want to hear a wonderfully detailed story, while kicking the dust out of Folkloric creatures and using very fluid and fun uses of the motion sensing capablities, then this is the perfect game for you.