Fragile Dreams Review

Okay, you guys probably don’t give a fuck about this review since you’ll probably never touch the game but I just had to share my thoughts on the game. I just finished it yesterday and I tell you, I got a lot of mixed feelings about this game. It had it ups and downs. Sometimes I would be pleasantly surprised and other times I would be soundly disappointed. Let’s take a look at what I liked in the game.

The story is a huge one in this. It was so riveting. The only thing that kept me going in this game was the story. I wanted to see what was happening. What was going to happen. What caused humanity’s demise in the first place and when I finally found out at the end, it blew my face off. I felt everything that the main character felt and his interations with everyone were very emotional. I found myself tearing up in most of the cutscenes.
Admittedly though, there were some points where I just sat there and went: “….whut?”, but it came together perfectly well in the end and it all made sense. After I beat the game, I was very satisfied, save this one scene that I didn’t understand at the end after I beat the game. Oh well.

The graphics were also very beautiful. The character models were incredible and they looked smooth and rounded and not blocky as some wii graphics can tend to be. The cutscenes and annimations were all masterfully done.

I also liked the innovation of the wii remote. When you pointed it around on the screen, you’d hear a noise come from the remote and often times you’d have to follow the noise to get to where you wanna go, or get an item that you want and you’d have to pay attention to the noise around you to know if there was an enemy in the room since they are invisible.

The soundtrack was also incredible. I loved it so much, that I’m considering looking for the CD and buying it just to make sure that I’d get all the tracks.

At times in the game, you’d pick up trinkets here and there that tell the stories of the people who held them before they died. I liked listening to those stories. It was a nice break from the story of the game.

While the story was outstanding, I found that it was too sad and depressing most of the time. You meet several characters over the course of the story but they all end up dying or leaving you in some way. Then you’d have to see the main character cry and all that which gets sort of annoying. If the main character weren’t so whiny, then it would of been okay. But he cried like every three seconds. It was sad watching him say goodbye to everyone he gets attached to and it was equally sad learning about all their misfortunes and their depressing circumstances. This one guy struggles to make this dead girl wake up by bringing her “treasures from all over” and you watch him pleading with the dead girl to wake up in vain. You hear his voice crackle with desperation as he continues: “Please wake up princess! Please! I brought you some more things. Why won’t you show me your beautiful smile anymore? Like you used to?”
There were also some holes in the stories. Some questions left unanswered. And I’m not talking about the kinds of questions that can be answered in a sequel or anything. Just holes. Like how did people manage to survive? What are the pasts of the characters that he meets? How did the main character survive and what was his life like before the person that took care of him died? How was his caretaker connected to the main story? You don’t get answers to any of that. While you may find out the important stuff, you’re left wondering about the little things. The small details. But not everyone cares about that, I suppose.

From the looks of the cover of the game, you’d think it would be all fantasy and such, but noooo. Most of the time, you are underground or in some dirty nasty structure with VERY LONG CORRIDORS. I’d spent 20 minutes to go down one corridor, reach the end, realize it’s a dead end and then go aaaaaall the way back. It was so long and tedious. I just wanted to get the hell outta there but it seemed never-ending. I was VERY disappointed in the fact that while I thought I was going to be outside in some ruins, I spent the majority of the game underground or in some structure.

The enemies looked unique but they were more annoying than scary. That coupled with the bad battle system made for a terrible experience fighting enemies and often times me getting killed in some ridiculous way. Because I couldn’t swing my weapon fast enough or because they threw projectiles that tracked me with no way for me to avoid them aside from hiding behind a wall like a bitch. xD

The weapons broke a lot. I hated that. I would get half way through a dungeon or something, then my weapon would break. I’d have to go alll the way back to a save point and get a new weapon and go back, only to have my weapon break at the exact same point that it did last time. The amount of items you can carry are extremely limited so it’s not like I could carry a bunch of spares. It was really a bother.

Another thing that disappointed me was the fact that despite it looking like a fantasy rated E for everyone game, it felt more silent hill-ish to me. Like the game was a giant rip off of silent hill 2, minus the fog and the multiple endings, with pretty graphics. Don’t get me wrong, Silent Hill 2 was an awesome game. But the more I progressed in the game, the creepier it got. The creepier the enemies got. It got to a point where you would be inside a ruined children’s hospital with creepy drawings everywhere and hand prints from this weird green fluid and even some blood here and there. It completely shattered my assumption that this game was going to be childish. Instead of getting a nice fantasy-like feel for the game, it felt more like a survival horror/fantasy game. I just don’t think mixing in whimsical qualities like glowing flowers and ghostly monsters and nice story book telling with creepy enemies and horrible dirty cement walls and structures fits. The creators of the game say that this game is not a survival horror and they never intended it to be, but they did a poor job of making it feel like anything else.

The last thing to add to the cons is about the silver-haired girl. Most of the objectives throughout the whole game say the same exact thing. “Find the silver-haired girl!”
I thought this girl would be with you through the game or that you’d run into her repeatedly, but you don’t. You run into her only like…twice in the whole game. Once in the beginning and again at the very end. You spend the ENTIRE time looking for her. The main character is so desperate to see her, despite knowing there are more people out there. It makes it look like he’s head-over-heels for her in some childish fixation. You only find her at the very end. Not only that, but she isn’t really important to the plot. She’s just a girl the main character wants to find. That’s it. She has no special powers. She isn’t directly connected to the event that wiped the earth clean of nearly the entire population of humans. Zip. Nadda. She’s just a scantilly clad little girl that you look for.
The only thing worth mentioning about her is that because the main character is looking for her, he ends up discovering the truths in the game while searching all over the place for her, even though he had no intentions of finding them out. They just sorta fall into his lap and she just happens to be conveniently smack dab in the middle despite not being directly connected to anything. You don’t learn anything about her or her past or how she even managed to survive in the first place. You don’t even know her name until you beat the game. It feels like it was pointless to add her in the game. She’s only there to have the main character strive for SOMETHING, and that’s to not be alone.

Well there were more cons than pros but I guess that’s just me. You may have different opinions if you play the game yourselves. I’d recommend this game for gamers who are more story driven in their playing rather than with gameplay. Or if you want a break from games with good gameplay but with crappy storytelling.

Out of a scoring scale from 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest, I would give this game a solid 7.

I might review more games for you guys. Only on the wii though as I don’t have a PS3 yet. But I’ll do those once I get it.

Hope you enjoyed.

‘Till next time!

~ Jaz