I fancied playing something a bit… different tonight, so I went to my shelves, bulging with backlog bounty, and looked at a few possible titles to give a go to. I didn’t feel like starting a traditional RPG just yet, so quite a few things were out, but my eye eventually stopped on a Wii title I knew nothing about but owned a copy of: Namco Bandai’s Fragile Dreams.
You may wonder why I own a copy of a game I know nothing about. Well, it was from a while back, when UK retail chain Game was in a bunch of trouble and looked like it might be folding; they were selling off a ton of their stock at ridiculously low prices, so I took the opportunity to grab lots of things that looked even a little bit interesting with a mind to eventually playing them at some point in the future. Fragile Dreams was one of them.
So how is it? Well, pretty damn cool so far. I’m not entirely sure what I was expecting, but I don’t think it was a feels-heavy action-RPG survival horror adventure game featuring the same “your Wii Remote is a torch” mechanic that worked so well in Silent Hill Shattered Memories. There’s actually a touch of Silent Hill in the game’s atmosphere, though in the case of Fragile Dreams it’s not so much about psychological horror as an ever-present sense of loneliness and abandonment.
At the outset of the game, the old man whom protagonist Seto has been living with dies, leaving him all alone in what appears to be a post-apocalyptic landscape. We don’t know anything about what has happened to humanity as the game begins, but little bits and pieces are revealed as you make your way through the game, both through elements of the environment that can be examined and “memory items” that allow you to hear the final thoughts of the world’s former inhabitants when you take a rest to restore your HP and save.
Seto isn’t completely alone in the world, despite initial appearances. Very early on, he encounters a silver-haired girl and proceeds to spend the next few hours (and, I’m guessing, going by my experiences so far, most of the game) chasing after her in an attempt to find out who she might be. Along the way he encounters some sort of sentient computerised backpack with mild self-esteem issues called PF, a not-quite-human person called Crow, a dead little girl with a penchant for cheating at hide-and-seek… and I don’t doubt there will be more strange and wonderful characters to encounter before the story has reached its conclusion.
It’s been a really interesting ride so far. The combat kind of sucks, but it’s a relatively minor part of the game, and the “survival horror” elements of having limited inventory space and weapons that have finite usage before they break add a bit of tension to the experience. It’s not been particularly scary so far, despite the presence of ghosts and whatnot, but it has been thought-provoking and emotional, even just four or so hours in. The emphasis appears to be more on the general atmosphere and feelings of loneliness than on outright trying to scare and disturb the player, and I’m fine with that.
There’s a lot of subtle charm to the game, too. Seto is just a kid forced to find his own way in the world well before he would have normally had to, and while he handles his task with a certain degree of maturity that you might not expect from someone whose voice hasn’t broken yet, his childlike qualities come through in game elements such as the automap which, rather than being a bland, clinical but clear affair, is presented as childish scribblings, complete with notes and doodles about scary and awesome things you’ve come across in your travels. Likewise, the baffling inclusion of lots of cats around the game world who can be tempted to come and play with you through the use of a cat toy makes for a welcome break from hitting ghosts with improvised weaponry, or trying to track down that one key you really need right now.
There’s clearly a lot about Fragile Dreams I don’t yet understand. But I’m very glad I chose to take a chance on it and see what it was all about; it’s shaping up to be a fascinating, deeply memorable experience. I hope it manages to keep this up until the end.
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One more game off the Pile of Shame list. 😀 This sounds charming – especially the cats! 😀 When I got to your words “…an ever-present sense of loneliness and abandonment…”I thought Oh Nooooo – how’s he going to stay positive through this recipe for depression – it would certainly get at me. But of course that is only an element of the game and you sound fine so far. I wouldn’t mind trying it but the combat element puts me off. It involves ‘physical’ playing and my dexterity has dropped due to an injured elbow. Also I’m not keen on limitations – I hate timed games which cause unnecessary pressure and tension. I’m all for easy playing. 😀 Looking forward to hearing more about this game. Do you know if it’s still available for Wii?
It’s a peculiar one. Some games — the “Souls” series is notorious for this, as is the Silent Hill series — have an oppressive sense of being very much alone in the world, and it’s disheartening to play these games in the same way that reading a dystopian novel or tragedy might be. Fragile Dreams is a different kind of loneliness; it’s more the loneliness of exploration and discovery, gradually discovering things for yourself rather than having them handed to you. There are other characters in the game, but throughout, the protagonist realises that the only person he can truly rely on is himself, and he seems to take this reasonably in his stride.
I find “depressing” games can actually be quite cathartic rather than depressing in and of themselves. If they’re relatable, they provide the relief of knowing that you’re not the only person feeling a particular way. If they’re strongly emotional, they can provide a good means of “release” for pent-up emotions; if what you really need is a damn good cry and you can’t do it on command, sometimes something that will make you cry — be it through joy or sadness — is just what the doctor ordered.
I can see Fragile Dreams having the potential to cater to both these eventualities. There’s already been a few heartstring-tugging moments as you come across the discarded memories of the world’s former inhabitants, and one in particular where you play hide-and-seek with a ghostly child, only to eventually reunite her with her also-deceased mother and watch them both drift off into the night sky towards the shining moon.
Interested to see where it goes. It’s been a baffling experience so far, but very enjoyable. You should still be able to get a copy for Wii (it’s for the older Wii, but will also run on the newer Wii U system as well), but since it came out in 2009 it might not be quite so readily available as it once was.
I thought I recognized that screenshot you posted on Twitter yesterday . . . but I couldn’t quite place it. This is a really cool game. It’s one of the titles that I always make sure to mention whenever uninformed people try to have the old “there were no hardcore/interesting games on the Wii, it was all waggle shovelware blah blah blah” argument with me. Fragile Dreams. Little King’s Story. Lost in Shadow. The original version of Muramasa. The “rainfall” games. The Wii was a system that was positively fertile with unique, artful games and cool ideas. I’m so grateful for the WiiU’s backwards compatibility.
Yes! I’ve been banging this drum for years. About the time everyone started complaining about triple-A being predictable and boring — and the 360 and the PS3 becoming more and more indistinguishable from one another, at least outside of niche-interest titles — the Wii was putting out some bizarre and fascinating titles.
I have quite a few of them on my shelf; I’ll get to them all eventually, and you know I’ll always champion the Rainfall games every chance I get. 🙂
Don’t know if you have it or have played it, or even if it’s available in PAL territories, but you may want to look into Arc Rise Fantasia. It’s from ImageEpoch, who brought you Time & Eternity. It’s a really cool very oldschool JRPG. What makes it remarkable is that it is so unremarkable. Just a classic turn based JRPG with lots of neat summons and a girl with amnesia central to the plot. It’s like sitting in your favorite chair.