Review of: Fairy Bloom
By: The Hunterminator

Genre: Action/Arcade

Pros:

+ Simple control scheme
+ Easy to jump in
+ Takes little time to start having fun with it.

Cons:

- Only one type of enemy
- Story mode is too short
- Only available in Japanese

Rating: 4.2 / 5

System Requirements (Taken from game website, with help from google 
translation, so might contain errors):

OS: Windows 98, 98SW, ME, 2000, XP
CPU: Pentium III 1GHz

Memory: 128MB

Graphic: VRAM 32MB, Graphic board of DirectX8 generation recommended.

Sound: Direct Sound compliant

Other: DirectX 8.1b (included in Windows XP)

Developer Website: http://edelwiss.sakura.ne.jp/

Download page: http://edelwiss.sakura.ne.jp/works/fairybloom/download.html

Questionable content: Animated Violence. No blood, no swearing (or speech 
actually) or anything else that usually comes with a violent game.

No multiplayer that I can see.

Full Review:

Ah, a game with fairies, and flowers, and sugar, and prettiness... and a 
knife, mustn't forget the knife.

In Fairy Bloom, you play the role of a fairy protecting a flower to make 
sure it will bloom. Now, usually, fairies do this by watering, and helping, 
and love, but not this fairy. No, she decided to grab a knife and kill 
anything that tries to harm the flower.

So you find yourself in front of a growing flower, it's size depending on 
the level and mode of play you are in. And a horde of enemies run in doing 
their best to reach and eat the flower.

It is with this rather simple beginning that you jump in, armed only with 
a knife and a deceptively simplistic control scheme.

Z to hit, X to jump and C to make a screen wide attack. That's simple 
enough, but then you notice that depending on various factors, the buttons 
do different things, and after that, you notice various ways to defeat 
multiple enemies at once. 

Before long, you're running around the screen, sending enemies flying 
like you were born to do it and enjoying every minute of it. That's the 
best point of this game, it pulls you in with a deceptively simple game 
play and then hooks you with the amount of things you can do.

However, like everything else, this game has a few low points. Most people 
who begin to play this game start with the "story mode" where you begin 
with a tiny sprout that slowly grows as the levels go before finally 
blooming... and the game stops there.

The amount of time it takes to reach that point is barely enough to wet 
your appetite, but at least, Endless Mode compensates that lack of length 
or difficulty. Actually, endless mode is a big challenge and, before long, 
you feel a small amount of panic as the screen fills with enemies rushing 
at the flower from 2 directions and four levels.

The second problem with this game, however, is also the worst. Simply put, 
there is only one type of enemy, a red hued version of your fairy that runs 
towards the flower ignoring you even while you're stabbing their backs. 
The similarity between enemies is offset by the sheer number of them, but 
the similarity between enemies becomes monotonous after a while.

The last problem, the fact that it is only available in Japanese, is 
lessened by the fact that this game is simple and requires no reading of 
text to provide an enjoyable experience.

In conclusion, this is a simple game that is jumped in easily, making 
it a perfect game for playing once in a while, just for fun.