Angels of Fasaria RPG is a role playing game set in a fantasy world, you play as a priest that just had a divine encounter with an angel, the angel tells you of a great evil named the Dominion's Order and that they are already conquering the entire world.  You waste no time and go to the king and tell him just what is up and then you are sent on a journey to another kingdom to find out more information.  What you learn are some deep secrets that were kept hidden from you since birth.  You return to the castle in your home town and find out that the castle has been taken over by the son of the king that lives in a rival kingdom.  You do battle with him and learn even more deeper secrets that were kept hidden from you.  Your journey doesn't end there as now you have to clear all of the members of the Dominion's Order and they are scattered across four lands.  Once they are all defeated, worldwide peace will be gained.  (Click "Read More" to read the full review).


The story in this game is very generic as it's just a simple tale about a hero who must save the world from a great danger.  Even though the story was generic, I wouldn't say that it was bland as it was entertaining and felt like I was watching a fantasy themed anime from the 1990's. The story was very clear and easy to understand and this game also had a very satisfying amount of story.  The scenes where you get dialogue that expands the story was the part of the game that I liked most and was the strongest point of the game.

The goal of this game is to travel across four worlds and beat all of the dungeons/stages, after that is done, you will be greeted with a final dungeon/level that you must conquer.  It sounds like a simple goal but you will find it to be a very tedious goal as in order to gain access to a dungeon/level you must collect angels.  The way to collect angels is by going to certain areas and search for them.  Once you find one you must then chase them down and touch them and once that is done they'll give you special points.  Once you gain enough points then you must talk to other angels that are blocking the way to the dungeon areas and exchange the points for the right to be able to explore those dungeon levels. 

I am not a fan of the collect-a-thon element for this game as it is a very slow and tedious process to where it is no fun.  It can also be very dangerous doing this task of gaining points as you do have enemies to deal with.  I found that battling monsters in those areas not to be a problem at all as it helps you gain experience points but the monster can get in the way and it is a challenge to avoid them.  You can gain the special points by finding them in treasure chests but for the majority of the time you must capture angels.  This collect-a-thon method also feels very out of place in an RPG like this as it feels more suited for a 3D platformer or an online MMO. 



Speaking of MMO, this game does come with a few extras such as an MMO version of the game, a bonus game called Battle Tactics, and another bonus game called Chess Club.  These extras don't really feel much like extras though as they take you to a web page to where you play flash versions of the games.  I also found that the menu for the Battle Tactics and Chess Club features was very finicky to navigate around and the exit button wouldn't work and so I had to ctrl+alt+del my way out of there.

You initially start off with one character and then quickly gain another one not too long after the intro but you can have up to four members in your party.  The way you gain more members is by going to guilds and hiring them.  Getting a new party member doesn't cost a thing and you can replace the member any time by going to a guild and firing the party member that you do not want any more and that will give you a free spot to hire another member.  Once a member is gone from the team you can re-hire them and so they are not gone forever.  The bad thing about the four party system for this game is that the fourth member is a bit useless as he/she just ends up being cannon fodder while your other members do all the damage...  I guess that could also count as a positive.

Exploring the dungeon levels was actually interesting and different for an RPG as they had more of a linear style and made it feel like that I was playing a level style that resembles playing a 3D platformer over an free-roaming RPG.  All of the dungeons have the same goal and that's to make it to the end and defeat the boss.  The dungeons also have people that you need to rescue and I really enjoyed that as it felt unique for an RPG and it was also fun looking for them all.  Each dungeon level also has a few fountains to be found and all they do is heal up all of your party members and they also make for good places to save your game for if you want to take a break.   I did find beating a dungeon to be very rewarding as when you defeat the boss you are given more story time and it was a story I was genuinely interested in.  Downside about the dungeon levels is that during the second half of the game they start to feel like I am playing the same level but with a different theme and so I got a little bored playing them.


The battle system in this game includes both random battle and on-screen enemy battle.  A random battle occurs after your character takes a certain amount of steps.  You will see some enemies running around on the open fields and in the dungeon missions, a battle will activate when you come into contact with them.  It is very interesting to see an RPG use both styles of battles and it does have some problems but the problems aren't with the random battles but I did have a problem with the on-screen battles. 

My problem when battling the on-screen enemies is that once you have defeated them you will not see them disappear from the screen.  This is a problem because it will lead to points where you'll be surrounded by on-screen enemies and won't be able to progress though the level and I know because that has happened to me while playing this game.  The on-screen enemies do get stunned and take a step back once defeated but sometimes that won't be enough. 

There was one point where a very stubborn enemy got in my way, I had to battle it until I pushed to the end of the area where there was more wide space.  I had to defeat the enemy fifty times (I kid you not) before I could progress further into the dungeon and it was tedious.  The walking pattern of the enemies can be quite random and that makes them unpredictable and there is a chance you may have to leave an area and go back just to make sure that they don't block your path.  One thing that isn't random about their movements is that once you are near any on-screen enemies you'll attract them to you like how a bunch of bananas attracts a hungry group of monkeys.


The battles themselves are turn-based to where everybody picks what they want to do and after that you will see everybody performing their actions.  Options for your characters are simple as you can choose to do a physical attack, magic attack, defend, or use an item.  The magic system in this game is called a prayer system and it is incredibly overpowered to where it makes mince meat out of all of the bosses and removes a lot of the challenge from the game, that can be taken as either a good or bad thing.  The thing that is hard about the system is that I am used to magic points being called MP but this game instead calls them FP (Faith Points) and it took a little to get used to.

The equipment system in this game is very easy to learn as all you do is get the gear with the best stats.  The item will tell you if it is better or not right from the equip menu and also from when you are buying an item as you will see that there will be arrows saying if the equipment it better or not.  If the equipment has a green arrow then you'll know it is good and a red arrow will signify that it will be an item that will downgrade your stats.  Make sure to save your money as the gear you'll need will be quite expensive but well worth it in the long run.  The healing items are very useful and you should keep them as a backup for when your characters run out of faith points/magic points. 

In order to travel to different lands as you must buy special teleport item and they can also cost you an arm and a leg depending on where you buy them.  If you are confused to which teleport items you need to buy in order to beat this game with ease then let me give you a little tip. You will notice that the teleport items are not sold alphabetically but they are sold in order to where you need to go next and knowing that will help with your journey big time. 


You will also be collecting medals that come in four different forms: Bronze, silver, gold, and platinum.  You will need these in order to upgrade your characters to the next rank, the way to gain a higher rank is by going to a higher realm, talk to an angel, and hand over five platinum medals.  You can also spend the medals on getting new equipment or you can just sell them.  Getting the medals is quite easy as you gain them by doing certain battles, finding them in chests, and by raising animals.  In order to raise animals you must have the right license, once you've got a license then you must raise the animal a certain way, once you've done that you'll get a medal.  Just be warned, getting licenses are quite costly but raising animals is a good form for cheap medal drops.  The medal system is also very easy to exploit and so you can get your characters up to their max rank quite quickly and power through the game.

Another thing you can do to earn money is by killing certain enemy creatures that will drop special items, take those items to a guild, and collect bounty for delivering them to the guilds.  One neat thing you can do at the guilds is do special trials that will have you facing against waves of enemies.  There are different trials and they are all based on the worlds that you have visited like how trial number one is based on world one, trial number two is based on world two, and so on.  The trails include beefed up versions of the monsters you have faced in the past as well and so it is not an easy thing to beat.  Beating the trials is very satisfying and you do get some good item and medal drops from beating those trials.  I also found the trails to be very fun and I have replayed them quite a bit.

The difficulty in this game isn't too bad as it is very beatable to anybody that doesn't play many role playing games.  This game doesn't take all that long to beat as you can beat it in around twelve to fourteen hours.  The hardest point of the game is when you are starting off in the first world as you have very low stats and the monsters will just beat you up.  The other hard point of the game is when you reach the other worlds for the first time, you are a little underpowered and have no idea what's the best method to use against the monsters.  I found that to be appropriate for an RPG as it gives you incentive to explore and experiment to see which methods work best.  The easiest part of the game has to be the bosses as by the time you get to them, your stats will be much bigger compared to theirs.  The final boss has to be the most anti-climatic point of the game as I managed to beat the final boss in only two hits, this is the case where the dogs bark was worse that its bike.


Games made with RPG Maker can look really good or really lazy depending on if they make their own graphics or use the core graphics found in the RPG Maker software itself.  The graphics for this game uses the core set but this is a case where I actually found that it worked with the game.  The graphics in this game will also remind you Super Nintendo and early Sony PlayStation games due to the 16-bit graphics.  The designs of the maps were very basic but weren't bad and I did like how they were designed for the most part.  There were some maps designs towards the end that were a bit frustrating to navigate through.

Music, sound effects, and animations all use what is found in the core RPG Maker program and it was a case where that also worked.  The sound of the music is very generic but far from sounding terrible.  The animation is average and it might put some people off.  The animations for the strongest weapons are pretty crazy and make the weapons feel ultra powerful.  One of the animations I liked was from when you get the strongest crossbow as the animations made it look like that you were firing nuclear warheads.

Overall this is an RPG that is full of problems but is also full of some really good ideas but sadly the bad does outweigh the good in this game.  This is a game that I am not going to recommend getting, especially for the price that it is being sold for.  If you do want to get it despite what I say, get it in a gaming bundle instead.  This game could've been a lot better if it were a 3D adventure game rather than an RPG as the ambitions that the team had for this game could not be fully obtained as an RPG Maker game.  Not recommended.

Game: Angels of Fasaria RPG
System: PC (Reviewing Steam Version)
Developer/Publisher: New Source Entertainment
Genre: RPG, Action
Price: $19.99 (Steam)
Recommended: No