Don't Judge a Fairy Tale by its Cover

I mentioned before how I could fill an entire year's worth of posts with free games alone. That statement was a bit inaccurate: I could fill an entire year off the gaming site Kongregate alone. Since I had such great luck with my last Kon game, I decided to head back a second time.

It didn't take me long to find something eye catching: Crazy Fairies. Who can resist a name like that?

The game's description just added to my excitement:

"Turn-based projectile shooting game with online, cross-platform multiplayer. Set in a crazy fairytale world where all your favorite characters come to life and battle to death."

I have a massive thing for fairy tales, having owned (and subsequently worn out) three copies of Grimm's Fairy Tales. 

I loaded up the game and immediately paused: As with many other online multiplayer games, this one has different servers to choose from, but with only one server available. The game was made in mid-2012, so maybe it's a final remnant of a game past its prime.

Character creation was fun. Character descriptions were clever and funny, and I totally dug the art style, with the big heads and tiny bodies reminding me of a certain awesome kitty (me. They reminded me of me), and wings! Angel wings and fire wings...

The bright colors and adorable backgrounds were icing on the already delicious looking cake. Naturally I choose the Master Cat character, clicking through the costumes until I found an outfit and wings to match. Let's see how good this pretty cake tastes...

The first few rounds were, of course, tutorial. I was given different (well, two different) weapons, A cannon for physical attacks and a staff for magical ones, to try out on an odd little cyclops monster. I didn't have any wings, figuring they would come with one of the next tutorials.

But I had another pang of hesitation: See, I knew going into it the game was turn-based. What I hadn't counted on was how sloooow it was. When it's just me and the one-eyed training dummy it isn't so bad, but once I entered my first match it became glaringly apparent the game had pace issues.

My first match was two on two, on a somewhat hilly battlefield. The whole match was around ten minutes of us taking turns chucking stuff at each other. Shoot my cannon, miss. Get nearly hit by a spell or throwing ax. Wait. Shoot a cannonball. Repeat. Nobody moved from their spot (there is little incentive to do so) and all of us took several turns to dial in our aim. My first three shots missed their target. The next two were dodged. With my sixth round I made contact! 55 points of damage! I've got him now!

Above us our partners duked it out, with my partner sustaining heavy damage early in the fight. Down below I made another hit, 55 damage. Then another. My foe was living off a sliver, my next strike would finish him! Above me my severely weakened companion felled his own quarry through some miracle or witchcraft and, having a faster turnaround speed than I, lobbed an ax at my prey.

...You kill-stealing sunuva bitch...

*Deep breath* Well, at least I won my first match.

Despite my victory I still couldn't get my mind off wings. Wings, man. Did I have to buy them? The short answer is yes, you do. The store had a bunch of wings for sale, all for 300 gold, a wee bit over my 150 silver I was working with. As luck would have it, two of the wings were only 50 silver! A pair of demon wings and a pair of angle wings. Now we're in business!

For the third time I paused: Like all other items in the game, the wings had a description detailing the bonuses they imparted on me. Unlike other items, the end of both descriptions had the words "Warning: Only" at the end in red. "Only" what? "Only" for noobs? "Only" for ferrets? I had no idea, but I shrugged away any suspicion and bought the angel pair.

I entered a new match, this one in the 'adventure' category, which pitted me and another player against a giant with about a dozen eyes and three noses. My wings didn't show up, having forgotten  I needed to equip them. Same frozen molasses game play. *Yawn*

Back at the character screen, I go to equip any new items I have. After all, with both the tutorial completion and my victories in-game I had earned quite a few new trinkets and baubles to wear.

All those trinkets? Every one of them bears the same name but lower stats as my beginning gear. Those wings? The "Only" stood for "Warning: Only members of last week's winning second place clan can use these wings". What? Then why are they available to everyone in the damn shop? if it knows I can't wear them, why doesn't it know not to let me buy them?! And why didn't that warning show up in full before purchase?!

I just...I just wanted to fly...

Play It or Pass It: Pass it. Long story short: It's boring. The game is absolutely adorable and witty, but it takes more than a pretty face for a recommendation. Boring is boring, no matter how much makeup it wears.

Wanna try it anyway? Here's the link!

http://www.kongregate.com/games/Spicyhorse/crazyfairies