Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon (Wii) Second Opinion Review

The world has been torn to shreds by a series of devastating earthquakes that led to what can only be discerned as an apocalypse; the end of the world is no longer nigh, it has arrived, and Fragile Dreams takes place in the aftermath of just such a terminal scenario. An endless fog has descended upon the planet, casting the majority of it into never-ending darkness, leaving players taking the role of a young boy called Seto who has recently witnessed the passing of his only close friend, an old man he had come to call Grandfather. In the depths of personal misery, the fifteen-year-old decides to make one last attempt at finding even a shred of humankind within the abandoned cities around him. It is not long before he stumbles across an enchanting young girl, who later in the game we find to be named Ren. Since she runs away as soon as she is spotted, it leads to Seto having to explore the world further to find her once more.

It is clear right from the start of the game that Seto's loneliness threatens to overwhelm him and his desire to meet new people becomes increasingly fervent as time passes. The player witnesses it right from the time he starts reading his Old Man's letter in a tear-filled voice, to the first meeting with the strange girl who languishes in the desolate landscape singing a beautifully haunting song before spotting Seto and subsequently running down into the depths of the deserted Japanese underground station. Upon following her, Seto inadvertently forms a close bond with a highly intelligent computer interface that he 'rescues'.

Early in the game Seto hears a request for help from an automated voice, with the AI machine announcing that it is not fully waterproofed and requires assistance due to underground flooding. Soon after, this female-voiced contraption, called a 'Personal Frame (PF),' is strapped to his back and used not only as a navigation device, but a substitute for a close friend. The relationship built between the two, even from the offset, is decidedly unusual, yet oddly sweet and charming at the same time, in the same way that Data from Star Trek was so endearing to fans. 'The robot that longed to be human' idea is perpetuated in Fragile Dreams and the sense of closeness is reciprocated by Seto's desperate need for a anything remotely human to relate to. 'PF' grows more and more attached to the young boy, even to the point of becoming slightly jealous that he insists on always talking of this elusive silver-haired girl and continuing the seemingly endless search for her instead of purely giving 'her' his full attention, since 'she' loves nothing more than to talk to Seto.

Even an encounter with the admittedly scary salesman that pushes a shopping trolley around whilst adorned with part of a chicken costume on his head cannot perturb the young lad, so strong is Seto's need for human contact. This almost deranged character proves to be of great use, though, whether you want to avoid him or not. For the cost of a few Yen, he will sell all variety of objects, from simple weapons to small trinkets such as a cat toy to attract the abundance of feline creatures dotted around the world. Health items are essential as well, since you will not always have the comfort of being in close proximity to a camp fire to rejuvenate your energy and save. What must be remembered is that there are only so many items that can be carried. The game deals with this in a grid-based fashion, with Seto's item bag taking the form of a 3x4 grid where items of different sizes can be placed and re-arranged as necessary (this small bag gets upgraded further into the story so that more items can be carried at any one time). When at a camp fire, there is the opportunity to deposit many items in a briefcase and switch things around in any way you like.

The story, as can probably be fathomed from the details above, is heavy on the side of melancholy and even approaching the realms of depressing at times, but there are moments of comic genius mixed in to help lighten the mood in places, such as when Seto goes into soliloquy about how beautiful the sunset is, with the dark red sky almost touching his heart...when suddenly the computer chips in, believing he is talking to it, then proceeds to technically describe the science behind what he is looking at...before realising he is not listening, merely talking to himself. However, there are also moments of true sadness, times when only the most cold-hearted person will not well-up slightly, maybe even shedding a single tear once caught up in the magnitude of the emotional scene unravelling before your very eyes. The story unfolds at a perfect pace and is told in a way that is both magical and heart-warming.

Some games will rely on the strength of their tale alone, yet Fragile Dreams not only has the most absorbing story on Wii to date, but is also one of the stunningly beautiful ones. The rich palette of colours used throughout, the exquisite locations, the highly detailed characters with their extremely natural animations - everything is a joy to behold, and that is without even taking the few breath-taking animé scenes that are included, which look staggeringly good even when played on a 40-inch HDTV. This is, without a shadow of a doubt ,one of those Wii gems that show exactly what the system can achieve under the right guidance, and really should make some third party developers blush. Additionally, Fragile Dreams excels in another area, that of its soundtrack. Composer Riei Saito has worked for tri-Crescendo on the Baten Kaitos and Endless Sonata soundtracks, yet it is her marvellously memorable, moving and soul-touching compositions for Fragile that will imprint her name onto the memories of gamers for years to come, putting her in the same class as legends such as Yasunori Mitsuda, Hitoshi Sakimoto and Nobuo Uematsu. Thankfully this is accompanied by a sterling effort from the Westernised vocal talent, with actors and actresses conveying the feelings of characters exactly how you would imagine.

During the game, Seto will be given numerous tasks to carry out. The game is fairly linear throughout in this way, but due to the complexity of the environments you need to wander around, at times it can be difficult to keep track of exactly what needs doing. Thankfully, not only does every new objective appear on the screen to ensure the player never gets confused about what is next on the agenda, simply tapping Up on the D-pad will also bring you to the 'About Me' page where not only can Seto's current health, attack strength, money total and Level be found, but also the current mission he is on. There is also the very clever addition of your robotic companion giving hints about what to do next, simply by placing the Wii Remote near your ear like you would with a telephone handset. The game recognises the movement of the controller and activates the voice via the internal speaker. This speaker function is used on many occasions during the game to great effect, and is a far better inclusion that mindless shaking of the Wii Remote for fighting purposes.

One of the key issues that almost prevented Fragile Dreams from ever being released in the West was the fact that a lot of in-game messages (be they of high importance or merely for the purpose of adding a little extra attention to detail) were integrated into the actual graphics, rather than being words placed atop the visuals. To circumvent this, though, now if you point the in-game cursor at specific signs or adverts in the underground stations, a little subtitle will appear on the screen to explain what it says. Clearly it would have been too time-consuming to translate every single aspect of Japanese, such as all the bits of graffiti scrawled on walls, or short obvious signs such as ones on fire extinguishers, however the translation team do throw in some nice touches, like giving the English description for the promotional poster of a movie, for instance. There are some amusing pieces of vandalism now in English as well, with a particular example being a poster where someone has drawn an eye on the head of a movie's star and roughly scrawled 'I can see!' over the film's tag-line. A large chunk of time can easily be wasted simply wandering around, checking out all the different sections of text, just as completists will have thoroughly enjoyed scanning every possible object in the Metroid Prime trilogy.

Along Seto's journey, in addition to the intriguing bits of English-subtitled Japanese signage, he will come across many mystery items that can be collected and cannot be clearly seen in the dark. Instead, they will only be identified when resting at a camp fire location. These items, along with other key ones that you find whilst wandering around the desolate, decaying world, are of great importance to Seto. They contain memories of those that once lived on this planet and help to prevent the poor, isolated young boy from losing his grip on reality. Some of these memories are joyous occasions, such as a mother and young girl talking happily together, whilst others are from when earthquakes struck, causing such pain and anguish. The voice work used for these moments is truly wonderful, conveying a wide array of emotions and helping to absorb players into the beautifully visualised surroundings. There are also certain items that can be used at specific stages of the adventure to help re-unite trapped spirits with their loved ones, creating even more emotive moments - a theme that runs for the entirety of Fragile Dreams and is a large part of what helps players move past any minor qualms or niggles with the battle mechanic.

Whilst there are many enemy encounters, the main focus of Fragile Dreams is more on the gentile-paced journey, with players joining Seto on his mysterious adventure into the world that has fallen into a state of disrepair. Along the way, in true RPG fashion, there are said battle encounters. Considering the pace is slow anyway, rather than making it even more so, tri-Crescendo and the Venus & Braves/Seven team have opted to make fighting as simple as possible, with 'A' being the sole action button. There is a small map available in the bottom-left of the screen that not only helps with navigation around the various environments Seto traverses, but also indicates when enemies are close - a radar pulse from the circular map, along with a brief rumble and noise from the Wii Remote is emitted with imminent danger. Instead of taking part in turn-based combat with wild beasts, Fragile Dreams actually includes real-time action fighting against the non-corporeal forms of those that have passed away. These ghostly apparitions are jealous of any remaining living beings and will do their best to help Seto join them in the spirit world. To prevent an early demise, the young boy can stab at them with any weapon he possesses, starting with a rudimentary stick and building up from there.

There is no lock-on feature, and Seto's running speed is only moderate, meaning that anyone hoping to rush through will find battles highly frustrating. On the other hand, anyone taking their time, soaking up the atmosphere, will appreciate how many enemies can be despatched with one or two mere swipes of the weapon, moving Seto around with the Nunchuk's analogue stick, carefully moving the on-screen pointer around with the Wii Remote's infrared sensor to adjust the camera and then simply tapping 'A' to flail away (tapping three times in a row to cause the protagonist to swipe, slash and finally lunge forwards, or holding 'A' to build up power with other weapons later in the game). It is by no means a perfect system, and when an enemy manages to scoot behind Seto, trying to spin the camera around and re-direct weapon slashes can be moderately awkward. However, for the most part it suffices and the need for fighting is not too frequent or intense that the battle mechanic threatens to break the game. On the other hand, fighting is not something to be completely avoided, with regular battles being important as Seto levels-up over time, increasing both his health statistics and strength. With most encounters only consisting of three or four slow-moving enemies at once, however, they can all be picked off at your own pace, with temporary retreat to a far enough away distance to make them disappear completely always an option. Keeping a spare weapon in your inventory is also imperative, since it needs to be remembered that Seto is merely using items from his surroundings, such as sticks and butterfly nets (yes...), so they have a tendency to break after enough whacks on enemies or crates. Whilst it may well be appear to be primitive on the battle front, there are subtle nuances to the system that will appeal to the more patient gamer and, for the majority of the time, you set your own pace.

This may make Fragile Dreams sound like a stroll in the park, yet it is neither too easy, nor overly difficult to the point of requiring endless level-grinding to make Seto attain superhero strength. The team at tri-Crescendo and Bandai Namco have struck the right balance to ensure there is enough included to appeal to all sectors of the gaming community, including those not quite as adept at playing videogames as others. The whole journey is by no means short either, and to even reach the half-way marker can take a good fifteen or so hours if players are taking the time to track down all the items containing hidden memories, checking out the interesting translations of signs/graffiti around the world, and gradually building up Seto's levels sufficiently as good practice instead of ducking out of every enemy encounter. Fragile Dreams: Farewell to the Ruins is a masterstroke in videogame story-telling, accompanied by marvellous art direction, a glorious sense of style, some of the best voice acting witnessed in a Wii game to date, a truly stunning soundtrack and a fighting system that is nowhere near as clucky and awkward as many sources will have you believe. Bandai Namco and tri-Crescendo should be whole-heartedly applauded for crafting such a magnificent experience for Wii, whilst XSEED Games and Rising Star Games deserve firm pats on the back for chasing it down and securing the rights for its Western release. Every Wii owner longing for an adventure with real substance to it should at least give this one a try.