Fragile Dreams is one of my favorite games of the 7th gen and is a very heartfelt experience indeed.
The story for the game is about how the entire human population of the world is gone,except for a 15 year old boy named Seto who was raised by an old man who is also the only human Seto has ever known but the old man died before the game starts.Seto decides to go and search for other humans and not long into his search he comes across a cute,silver-haired girl whom looks like she's around Seto's age but after he says only a few words to her she runs off and Seto tries to find her again.The story does a good job of making Seto feel alone because you'll see him having conversations with a portable computer that he finds or with ghosts and even these concepts are used in a way that make the story emotional(but I won't spoil why).However,demons plague the world and so do some violent ghosts who want to kill Seto.
I like how the game made me wonder who is this silver-haired girl? why did she run away? is there other humans besides her?
There is other things that make the story very emotional,I don't want to spoil them for you but I'll give an example that's a minor spoiler
MINOR SPOILERS BELOW
there's a segment when a ghost child wants to play a hide and seek style game with Seto and Seto has to catch her and after he does she finally gets reunited with her ghost mother and it's a very heartfelt moment.
END OF SPOILERS
Much of the gameplay involves trying to find your way through abandoned buildings or tunnels and searching for keys or passages so you can travel through the buildings.The combat is action style and simplistic for the most part because you can defeat most enemies by repeatidly pressing the A button and you'll need to be careful not to press the A button too early or too late because enemies can attack you when they're not being stunned by your attacks.Some enemies use the element of surprise such as demonic arms that reach at Seto from the walls and if you walk into their path they can inflict a lot of damage to Seto's health.Fast moving ghost dogs sometimes hide in dark areas which gives them the chance to do a sneaky rush attack on you.
The combat system has no block button and you can evade enemy attacks by stepping backwards.The game has no lock-on feature and it makes combat feel awkward.Even worse,certain enemies such as flying ghosts can be hard to hit when they're flying around because you have no lock-on ability.Seto's lack of manuverability allows enemies to get behind him and land cheap hits on him.But the combat isn't difficult for the most part and you can level grind anyways.
Some enemies can only be defeated with ranged weapons such as a bow.The game has a small amount of RPG elements such as leveling up and respawning enemies that allow you to level grind and you can buy healing items and more powerful weapons but you can't equip any armor.
However,despite the problems with the combat,the gameplay felt satisfying to me because of the chilling environments because the demons look creepy and make scary sounds and some of the ghosts are disturbing because some of them will laugh or cry when they fight against you giving them the feeling that their spirit is very emotionally unstable and making them feel more dangerous.The dark environments make things feel more chilling and the fact the environments make it obvious nobody has lived in those places for a long time gives the game a suiting depressing feel.
The item management is a pain though becaue you can only carry very few items and often you'll need to bring up your on-hand item list so you can pick up more important items such as health restoring items or better weapons.Also,you can find interesting items such as papers/books that have diary entries from people who once lived in the world and you can read them but they take up item space too! Seto can store many items at bonfires but he can only carry a few items when he walks around.As you would expect,the bonfires are only in very few places.You can save your progress and regain all your health at bonfires.
Another annoying thing about the game is your weapons will constantly break and it happens randomly and you'll need to spend a lot of time grinding so you can collect enough money to buy more weapons.
The gameplay uses a lot of trial by error because the keys can be in many different rooms and some buildings have multiple floors and you'll need a lot of patience.
Even though I sound negative towards the gameplay,the story and atmosphere and scariness and depressing feel of the game make it a satisfing experience.I felt motivated to help Seto find the silver-haired girl and other people all the way through the game.
The visuals for the game use anime influence and have a nice way of using certain colors such as blue,black,white and glowing effects such as moonlight shining over tall grass and flowers and lakes.The artistic effects of beautiful sunrise/sunsets over an unmaintained children's playground is quite heartbreaking(knowing all or most of the children in the world are gone).
The game has beautiful music that sounds sad at the same time.I like how you'll hear the sound of crickets through your remote to make it sound like they're near you and because you can hear them so clearly it means there's no other humans around making noise.
Seto's english VA's a purposely overdone and it made me feel sad and empathetic towards him.
This game is a wonderful and heartfelt experience but I think it's suited for people who want to experience an emotional story and can overlook problematic gameplay.
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