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Fragile Dreams


pedrocasilva

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Buy it!! It's one of those games where you'll either find boring or (like me) be completely captivated by the atmospheric graphics, haunting soundtrack and emotional story. Either way £15 is just too good a price not to take the plunge. As someone else said here, it's one of my fave games this generation.

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  • 5 months later...

I just completed Fragile, took about ~15h. :santa:

 

Amazing game. I can't believe how touching it is. The story and atmosphere is like no other. Its this wonderfully sad, lonely, mysterious tale wrapped up in a horror setting. I don't think a game has ever scared me as much as Fragile! Is it going too far to say it was more atmospheric than Eternal Darkness?

 

There was the sounds from the Wii remote as you approach baddies - the legs enemies and crying women being the freakiest probably! And something else that freaked me out no end (I'll be vague) was when you got the torch that lets you read previously unseen messages on the walls. Even a simplistic "Help me!" was giving me the chills... never mind the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end, my beard was standing on end too! I was on tenterhooks the whole time. Juxtapose all this sort of stuff with the delicately told story and well acted characters, and I had an emotional experience thats brought me as close to crying as any game has, FF VII eat your heart out.

 

Aside from the janky controls, I have two gripes to do with the design of the game:

 


  • At the beginning of the game my first two sticks broke quickly. This was before enemies started dropping money, so I had a tough time selling stuff and collecting healing items to sell to buy myself a new weapon. The best thing to do would have been to not fight anything/ fight as little as possible until the enemies started dropping the mystery items that served no other purpose than to be converted to cash.

 


  • Secondly, there was enforced backtracking. :heh: Urgh! The game made it pretty easy to go back through new routes to collect items for two fetch quests but still... after the game being so good with continually moving forward, I didn't like having to trek backwards.

 

 

The story ended up being a wee bit underwhelming (...plus the final boss was a COMPLETE push over!) but I don't mind because everything that happened from the word go made for a great journey. Fragile is best played with Japanese voice acting and in the dark. Its the sort of game where you just allow yourself to get wrapped up in it and the real world gets entirely put on hold in the meantime.

 

Has its faults, but its got to be one of the best games around.

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Terrible game imho. I was soooo looking forward too it. Stempunk rpg with wonderful atmosphere and a emphasis on story? wow.

 

But no...its awful. :( The artwork and music are wonderful, no question there. There atmosphere over most is good too....but...

 

But theres nearly no gameplay, its crazy short and crazy repetitive (You spend quite literally minutes just going down a ladder at one point).

You also spend a good half the game either arranging your inventory or backtracking to get an item you had to leave behind. Theres nothing wrong with short games - Portal and BG&E being some of my all time favourites - but this sort of game lengthing is unacceptable. It needed a years extra content to justify the length really.

 

Overall; Dont buy it.

Buy Penumbra on the PC instead if you want something with a great atsmopshere but also great gameplay.

Or maybe Cursed Mountine which is the closest this generation has to Eternal Darkness and actualy has basicly all the good features of Fragile and none of the bad imho.

(of course, it has its own negative points...but if you want something with atmopshere,story,and mostly just fighting horror enemys it pulls it of a lott better. No backtracking or inventory mangement, no "pretend" rpg elements that you have no control over etc)

 

Is it going too far to say it was more atmospheric than Eternal Darkness?

 

Yes, yes it is :P

Fragile might have better environment modelling then ED (although both are great), but the sound and pacing of ED gave me a much stronger feeling of being there.

 

ED also had a vastly better story imho. Fragile knew how to start a story, but it really fell apart. ED made me care more and was going "hell yeah!" at the end :P

I know thats really a different issue to atmopshere, but the two do relate with one enhancing the other.

Edited by Darkflame
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Yes, yes it is :P

Fragile might have better environment modelling then ED (although both are great), but the sound and pacing of ED gave me a much stronger feeling of being there.

 

Well I've not played Eternal Darkness in many a year now, but casting my mind back I don't remember it giving my younger self the same scares that Fragile has given me now. ED is an excellent game, I'm not saying otherwise. :)

 

As for the rest of your post, I've not played Penumbra of Cursed Mountain but I think you're being over critical of Fragile. :heh: I agree that Fragile has its faults - like the slow pace of descending all those ladders at the dam! When starting I didn't know what to expect entirely, all I remembered was people berating the game for its combat. Not long after beginning Fragile I got used to it and played it how it wanted me to play it - pretty much like a point and click adventure. If you give yourself over to the game then it will reward you with a really edgy, intense experience.

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  • 6 months later...
I had an emotional experience thats brought me as close to crying as any game has..

 

I don't remember reading that when you originally made the post.. but I'm glad you did say it because I almost felt the same :red:

 

I completed Fragile Dreams tonight and, although I wouldn't say I was anywhere near close to crying, it was an absolutely beautiful experience with an atmosphere and story that actually makes you feel..

 

I can't pretend that there weren't moments of it that made me feel somewhat sorrowful about certain aspects of my own life, but I kinda found it wonderful that this game could tap into those emotions and take me on a journey that a game never really has before :smile:

 

The game, of course, wasn't perfect and there were plenty of long and empty corridors to navigate but, in a way, these helped add to the ambience. As for the combat, I actually thought it was decent enough :hehe:

 

Overall, it's probably not a game that'll be memorable for its gameplay but, for me, it is an experience worth having!

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