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But the truth is that aside from the increasingly dangerous enemies and situations, it doesn’t really pick up the pace – but then it’s not meant to. Its ponderous nature is integral to its unique appeal. It fosters a nervous energy as you play, as though Silent Hill had all the scary bits removed and replaced by weirder, more surreal, more dreamy elements to hold your attention.
The Wii remote’s tinny speaker, for example, gets quite the workout, requiring you to hold it to your ear in order to find ghosts or seek out characters. It also acts as an early warning signal for approaching enemies – handy for the pouncing dogs, sure, but downright weird when manic giggling signals an ambush by disembodied legs determined to kick you to death.
Likewise, the eclectic cast of characters you meet along the way all attempt to pique your interest, along with the huge amount of collectable items hidden away that, through their unlocked ‘memories’, help to flesh out the story behind this fallen world. Whether you’re going to actually like the characters and memories, however, is another matter entirely.
Depending on your disposition, you’ll either find Fragile Dreams’ dialogue sweet and endearing or sickeningly saccharine. It’s big on love and friendship, musings on loneliness, and monologues backed by stylised cutscenes. If you’ve watched any anime you’re bound to have come across this sort of thing before – ‘human drama’ but laid on really thick. Inevitably, it comes off worse in the English dub, all forced and horribly overacted. Mercifully, you can switch to the Japanese voices which, when taken with English subtitles, make it infinitely more bearable.
For all our negativity, and despite its annoyances and the fact that, really, Fragile Dreams isn’t that good a game, we were still compelled to keep playing, to see Seto through to the end of his journey. That was due in part to the engrossingly moody game world, certainly, but also, in spite of its very real shortcomings, because there are few games like it on Wii. That, at the very least, makes it both memorable and just about worth your while.
Mar 16, 2010
