Ara Fell

Holy crap, it’s been over a year since I last played and recommended a quality Indie RPG.  Well that certainly won’t stand!  Admittedly, some of that has to do with the Indie RPGs I’ve played in 2022 being so famously excellent (Disco Elysium) or having been made by a studio that’s famously excellent (Pyre) that they really just don’t need the “publicity” of a rant.  But still.

So, usually when I write these Indie RPG recommendation rants, I try to call special attention to the great qualities that set the game apart and make it unique.  Stuff like the themes of class divide and revenge in Children of Zodiarcs, the poignance of Rakuen, the ambiance and love for Africa in Beautiful Desolation, the use of Norse mythology and portrayal of a prolonged end-of-the-world scenario in The Banner Saga, the simple fun factor of Cosmic Star Heroine, and so on.  This stuff is rarely the only admirable trait of the game, of course, but qualities like these are easy signatures to identify and laud, the characteristics that both set them apart from their peers and make them more interesting and attractive to prospective players.

There is, however, a type of RPG that I typically think of as a “Final Fantasy 4” kind of game.  Essentially, it’s an RPG that is simply, straightforwardly good from essentially all angles, and one that just about everyone can agree they liked.  It somehow stands out and is memorable, in spite of the fact that it’s kind of hard to point to any particular facet of its whole as being especially impressive.  It’s a genre crowd-pleaser, an RPG that tells an RPG story and does a good job of it, with fantasy and emotion and purpose and character development and twists and victory and defeat and villainy and heroism, the whole standard RPG experience.  The kind of game that represents the backbone of a positive experience with the genre as a whole.  And it’s this solid all-arounder category of RPG that Ara Fell falls into.

Ara Fell is the story of a free-spirited, snarky young woman named Lita discovering a magical relic, resulting in her getting caught up in a great quest to save the land of Ara Fell, a giant island which floats in the sky.  Over the course of this adventure, she’ll recruit allies, face grand monsters, be guided by visions of a magical elf lady, explore every corner of her world, grow as a person, discover the secrets of the ancient race that inhabited the lands before humanity, and contend with the evil machinations of villains.  It’s an RPG, and it does RPG things, and that’s...sort of it.

And that’s certainly no bad thing.  RPGs in the last 10 years have seemed to be increasingly interested in being unique entities with designs and shticks that make them works unto themselves, less and less confined within the classic identity of the genre.  Even the Tales of series, reigning king of the “business as usual” RPG ever since SquareEnix lost its fucking mind 2 decades ago, broke out of its colorfully generic and usually mediocre shell in 2017 to deliver the artful, powerful Tales of Berseria.  That’s a title which gives RPG tradition the middle finger by making its arguably biggest message the idea that there’s value and importance in the negative emotions of humanity!  The story and ideas of RPGs have been increasingly breaking out of the shell of genre-defining characteristics as time goes on.*  This does NOT displease me, mind you--the more Tales of Berserias and Undertales and Disco Elysiums and West of Loathings and Pathfinder: Kingmakers and Quantum Entanglements and Shin Megami Tensei: Persona Qs and Nier: Automatas and Supergiant Games and so on, the better!  But I also don’t want to completely lose the classic Final Fantasy 4/Lufia 2/Secret of Mana/Breath of Fire 1 type of RPG, either.*

So it’s really great, to me, when an RPG like Ara Fell comes along.  One that’s got a well-developed, likable, and distinctive cast who engage well with the events and world before them.  One that has a solid, enjoyable story with the right number of twists and turns and ups and downs.  One with fresh and relatable writing and dialogue, and a well-utilized sense of humor (Lita’s fond of poking fun at RPG conventions now and then, and you all know how I like that).  One possessing competent pacing, a good narrative voice, a great soundtrack, adequately evil villains, and a classic JRPG setting and approach.  It’s just the kind of game that satisfies my need for quality RPG comfort food before my next foray into more exotic samples of the genre’s cuisine.

And that’s my recommendation for Ara Fell, basically.  Do you want to play a good RPG, and enjoy the genre for its own sake as you do?  Then Ara Fell’s a reliable option.  Lita’s story is fun, engaging, even moving at times, and if you need a reminder of the ways a basic specimen of its family can stand out and please, then it’s sure to perk you up.













* Well, okay, the traditional genre-defining RPG is in no danger of disappearing so long as Kemco and Dragon Quest continue to churn out games.  But Torag forbid those ever become one’s only options for the basic bread-and-butter RPG.  Best to put the whole genre out of its misery at that point.  Hell, I’ll go Old Yeller on it myself if I have to.