As a lover of role playing games I’m always looking for something interesting and new. The dilemma is that often these games will take hours upon hours to complete making it nearly impossible to play them all. While I often prefer RPGS that are a bit more in the moment and fast paced, sometimes I want to sit back and dive into something a bit more complex like a Tactical RPG. Often synonymous in name with the Strategy RPG, these often more unit based adventures like the newly released Fell Seal: Arbiter’s mark for the Nintendo Switch engage the mind with every battle.
The story of Fell Seal takes place in a fantasy world where the titular Arbiters are the legal mortal extension of The Immortals Council who saved the world prior to the game’s start. These seven ruling leaders use the Arbiter’s to protect the lands from normal day to day issues like bandits and monsters. Though after a while things have started to descend into chaos again as the once law-preserving Arbiters have become corrupt with the status they hold.
Enter Arbiter Kyrie, the story’s main protagonist, who still upholds the values and principles of the order, when others unbeknownst to her have become corrupt. Kyrie and the other incorruptible Arbiters in her party set out to seek justice against a nobleman named Alphonse who murders a man in public. He is soon protected by the Immortal Council by being Marked for ascendance to an Immortal after being brought to the main branch in Illuster. Even after this reveal, it’s up to Kyrie to get to the bottom of this injustice despite many complications along the way including the Marked status which makes him virtually untouchable.
One thing that Fell Seal has going for it is that right from the start it pulls you in with its characters and the writing. You will see plenty of traditional tropes within but for me it never gets old. For this adventure I like that each of the main cast of characters has a personality that sets them apart which is real important in a world with over 20 different classes. The story keeps you engaged between the battles that take up an equal measure of your time in Fell Seal. It’s the kind of story that make you want to see it to the end just to make sure the bad guy gets it in the end even with everything else going on.
When you’re not engrossed in the story you’ll find yourself deep in some turn-based combat that is as complex as it is fun if planning out your moves and unit placement is your thing. The biggest thing that I like about Fell Seal is the ability to recruit and create individual units to aid your main party. You can tailor a unit pretty much any way you want from the way they look to the skills they have. This has many uses including having switch out characters when any prominent characters, excluding Kyrie, sustains an Injury in battle when defeated.
The Injury mechanic itself is one that you don’t see too often with only Banner Saga coming to mind more recently. Injured players need time to recover from their wounds and will suffer penalties depending on the number of injuries they have if continuously used in battle. This feature adds some depth to your party management as if you have a character unit resting they cannot be deployed in battle. This is where those substitute units came into play and are encouraged. There is an option to turn off injuries all together if needed but that takes the challenge out of things.
On the opposite side you can even set the game to increased injury difficulties were injuries are permanent with a -5% to a random stat or take things further where 5 permanent injuries result in permadeath in all characters excluding Kyrie. Yes that means starting characters like Anadine and Reiner can die if this option is chosen. There are other settings as well that allow you to tailor your experience to your liking including overall difficulty and whether or not enemies can revive their allies or not to name a few.
But before you even think about doing that you got to get the basics down. Fell Seal doesn’t stray from the overall formula when it comes to actually combat mechanics. Units are moved across the traditional grid based battlefields each with varying elevations and more interesting interactive locations like the cellar hatch in one of the early battles that could spawn more enemies unless someone is standing on top of the door. This was one of the various clever level design elements that 6Eyes built into their battlefield but I won’t spoil any of the others. The one downside I have with the combat is that the camera is static. While you can the D-pad to move the camera position over the isometric map you can’t rotate the camera to see enemies or other obstacles on the backside of the map.
Regardless of the static camera though the level and character designs are quite well done with their hand drawn retro style details. This style as well as its vibrant colors lends itself well to play sessions both in handheld mode and even when hooked up to a larger 4K TV. I loved the little things like the painting looking character portraits and the moving clouds and birds on the map screen when you move between locations. The music within fits well with the fantasy theme throughout the entire adventure.
Depending on how deep you dive into Fell Seal’s experience you’re looking at easily 40 hours or so of gameplay on the short side, but my playthrough ended around 75 plus taking in optional content, unlocking the different classes, crafting, grinding and unit customization into account. That not bad at all for the $30 price tag of a two-person indie team. So if you want to play a retro style Tactical RPG and enjoy games like Final Fantasy Tactics then you should check out Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark available via the Nintendo eShop for the Nintendo Switch today.
