Game:

Legend of Fae (2011)

Duration: 1:04:20

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It's a cheap, extremely grindy Indie / Doujin puzzle and RPG hybrid game developed with the Unity engine with a decent amount of content that is contrary to its low asking price. Released April 2022 for Steam by "Waku Waku Games" and developed by "Wandering Wonder", the game is fun in small doses and has a few minor bugs that are slightly irritating but don't ruin the experience. The Nintendo Switch version was released in September, but doesn't appear to have any notable differences in performance and seemed like a better fit for the platform. Regrettably, both iterations of the game can be deemed quite obscure.

As the name suggests, you take control of Mirai, the puzzle battler, in this goofy and light-hearted tale of a girl who rescues princesses while paying off an unspecified (but large) debt brought about by too much snacking and subsequent dietary supplements. The story is brief but completely over the top as you try to rid yourself of your dubious title of "The Indebted Ten". The core of the game isn't especially different on the surface from certain past Puzzle / Action / RPG hybrids such as "18 if", "Puzzles & Dragons", "Legend of Fae", "Henry Hatsworth" (perhaps the most unique of these), etc., but still manages to provide some entertainment through its audio / video approach and various nuanced mechanics. Mirai defeats waves of enemies to earn cash and experience (fairies) that she can then use to unlock nodes on large maps to get stronger or get keys to save princesses, but she can get a bunch of passive abilities as well as item drops for new attack skills from various enemies as well. Each enemy type will randomly drop an attack skill which has stars to denote its rarity (the higher the rarity, the more you can upgrade it and the higher its level limit) and different skills are better suited for certain enemies or situations.

During the puzzle aspect, all eliminations deal damage, but chains GREATLY increase damage and eliminating R/G/B pieces will allow you to use special attacks assigned to the corresponding buttons, so it is highly to your benefit to orchestrate combos. However, like in games such as the "Legend of Fae", the enemies attack in real-time and won't wait for you to get situated, so speed and skill go hand in hand. Mirai has access to a variety of skills from attack and defense to support, and every five rounds will have you face off with a mid-boss -- besides being stronger, they also have characteristics unique to them. For one, they can execute special attacks like Mirai, but they also go into overdrive when their health is reduced below the halfway point, increasing the ferocity of their attacks and gaining an even more powerful special attack. Mirai has a trump card of her own during boss battles: Doubling. If a boss activates a special attack and you launch one immediately after them, the effect of your ability will be doubled and increase in size. In the case of defense skills, they are typically large enough to block all incoming attacks or in the case of support, the effect is increased. That kind of thing.

One final aspect of the game is its branching paths. The game essentially has a basic hub with a fork in it that alternates between Easy, Normal and Hard to determine if you're playing just to experience the story or for a true puzzle challenge (and alternates the grind accordingly). While it might seem like you should just play on Easy, doing so will lock you out of the rarer item drops and offers a lower cash / experience grade, so it's a risks versus rewards thing. However, there is no major penalty for losing and you even get to keep everything you get up until the time of defeat, so a longer but ultimately more rewarding game lies in wait for those who maximize the game system. As for the aforementioned bugs, the game tends to soft lock if you go back and forth between menus too quickly (it happens more often the faster you do it, requiring a restart).

PBM is a good game with some crunchy 8-bit (inspired) pixel graphics and choice tunes that is hard not to recommend at its low price, and it is Wandering Wonder's first commercial game. They're also working on a Shmup which will release at some point that's shaping out to be modest fun too. You can get the game and learn more at:

https://www.nintendo.com/store/products/puzzle-battler-mirai-switch/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1213910/Puzzle_Battler_Mirai/
https://twitter.com/StudioWandering

Enjoy.

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