Regarding popular anime, I’m pretty fond of Fairy Tail. The concept and the world of Fairy Tail interest me greatly, especially since playing Koei Tecmo’s Fairy Tail RPG a few years back. Now, a new game has been developed aside from the upcoming Fairy Tail 2 called Fairy Tail Dungeons.

Fairy Tail Dungeons is a deck-building RPG with an original story crafted by the creator of the Fairy Tail series. A strange door appears in Fairy Tail’s basement, which Natsu and a few others are sucked into. They meet Labi, an interesting cat who seeks to help his friend at the labyrinth’s center. I won’t say too much more to avoid spoilers, but the story is surprisingly good for a Rogue-like deck builder of its nature.

Interestingly, Fairy Tail Dungeons utilizes a party-based system. You run each character through a round of 3 floors, and if you survive that, then you take that loadout with you. After a while (without spoilers) you’ll be able to plunder deeper depths with a chosen party, using the loadout from their previous runs (holding up to 4 loadouts from successful runs) to create a balanced team of fighters.

As usual, you’ll have to balance defensive cards, offensive cards, and support cards. However, certain cards synergize together via “magic chain” attacks to enhance damage. Balancing your characters’ strengths and build is important, otherwise you won’t make it past tougher enemies and bosses.

Fairy Tail Dungeons is a tough game. It takes a lot of trial and error, but there’s an engaging “just one more run” factor to it. Adding in the fact that the storyline feels like a true Fairy Tail story really helps. From meeting familiar characters in the Labyrinth to getting glimpses of the true narrative after (or during) each run, there’s always something to keep you interested.

I do have two gripes with Fairy Tail Dungeons though. I wish the soundtrack was a little more varied for one. After a while, you hear the same tracks repeatedly as you do longer runs. The other gripe I have is that the amount of time it takes to get to a point where you can progress to later areas is pretty long. There is a lot of grinding involved, even beyond usual Rogue-likes.

Despite those issues, I really like Fairy Tail Dungeons. The game is a lot of fun, even when you’re grinding through rounds of failed runs to get to that one good one. Surprisingly, for an anime tie-in game, it beats Slay the Spire and a lot of other deck builders based on pure enjoyment for me.

If you’re a fan of Fairy Tail, this is a great game for you. However, even if you haven’t seen the anime or read the manga, Fairy Tail Dungeons will still hit that deck builder sweet spot. Make no mistake, Fairy Tail Dungeons might be one of the best deck builders that has been released all year.

A PC Review Copy of Fairy Tail Dungeons was provided by Kodansha for the purposes of this review.

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Fairy Tail Dungeons

$13.99 USD

9

Score

9.0/10

Pros

• Great Story
• Engaging, Fun gameplay
• In-depth progression
• Varied character options

Cons

• Soundtrack is Repetitive
• Pretty Steep Grind at times