Legend of Fae

Overview

Legend of Fae is the story of Claudia Bernard, a young girl who finds she has the ability to commune with elemental spirits just in time to get their help as she tries to learn why her hometown is being attacked by monsters known as Fae creatures. The core of the game play revolves around match 3 puzzle mechanics, with each type of block representing the four elements (earth, fire, wind and water), and other game play abilities, a la Puzzle Quest. Unlike Puzzle Quest however, combat happens in real time requiring the character to switch between the puzzle element of the game to the combat element to select specific targets and attacks.

Story

The game begins by introducing Claudia Bernard and explaining that she suffered a disease as a child which left her with permanent damage to one of her legs. In her weakened state, her parents are not able to give her the care she needs while maintaining the family farm, so she is sent to live with her Uncle Monte, an academic on Sea Cross Island. Her Uncle quickly grows attached to his fragile Niece and uses knowledge to construct a leg brace for Claudia, allowing her to walk with minimal impediment. He also recognizes Claudia's potential and teaches her various thing discovering she is quite adept at engineering.

Claudia lives happily with her Uncle on the island until one morning she finds a package left for her by Uncle Monte. The package contains a note, a tome with nothing written on any of the pages and a strange lantern. The note explains that Claudia must take these items and leave the island, explaining that her parents have been informed that she will be returning. The note concludes with Uncle Monte explaining that there is money on the shelf for her trip back to her parents. After reading the message, Claudia decides she prefers her life on the island with her Uncle over what her life would be back at the family farm, and goes off to find her Uncle to at least get a better explanation, bringing along the blank tome and lantern.

As Claudia starts walking form her home in the outskirts of the town she comes across Mr. Clavit, standing in the road next to his rolled truck. Clavit explains he was driving when a strange dog ran in front of him causing him to swerve of the road and wreck his truck. He also explains that he could easily flip the truck back over if Henry were still around, but all the youths are off at "the war". Clavit then explains he needs to go and get some help, and asks Claudia if she would gather up a couple of chickens that had scattered when the truck crashed, and walks off.

Once Claudia has finished gathering the chickens she is confronted by a floating blue elemental that Claudia calls a fairy. The elemental responds with surprise at Claudia's ability to see it and claims it is not a fairy. Before the conversation can go any further, the underside of the flipped truck catches on fire. Claudia expresses her concern over the truck and the element suggests it know who caused the fire, and goes on to explain to Claudia how she can use the elemental's control over water to extinguish the fire. Once the fire has been put out, a red elemental floats out annoyed that it's been dowsed in water. The blue elemental introduces the red elemental as Fred the fire elemental, and inquires Claudia's name. Claudia introduces herself followed by the blue elemental who explains it's name is Nixie. The two elementals are curious about Claudia's ability to see and converse with them, as well as her strange lantern, resulting in the elementals requesting to accompany Claudia while she goes to find her Uncle. The trio quickly encounter a gremlin which appears as though it could have been the "dog" that Clavit saw when he wrecked his truck. Fred and Nixie explain to Claudia that the gremlin is a Fae creature, and needs to be dealt with. Claudia makes short work of the gremlin along with a couple more she comes across on her way into town along with Fred and Nixie's elemental power. The elementals suggest that the Fae creatures could have been drawn to the island by magical items.

As Claudia and her elemental friends get closer to the city they come across a strange rock barrier in the way that Claudia is certain she's never seen before. Nixie claims she knows who is responsible at which point a green elemental jumps out to acknowledge his elemental cohorts. Nixie introduces the green elemental as Enkie, the earth elemental, and explains that Claudia is in tune with the elementals and requests that she be allowed to pass. Enkie refuses and claims that it is too dangerous ahead, due to the Fae creatures. Fred tells Claudia the she can remove the barrier using its fire element, which she does. Seeing that Claudia will not be deterred, Enkie explains that she will not be safe, to which Claudia asks the earth elemental to accompany her, referring to them as fairies once again. Nixie quickly snaps back that they are elementals, not fairies. Enkie agrees to come along in order to help protect Claudia. Shortly after gaining the newest member of their team, they encounter another type of Fae creature that resembles a large squirrel, that is identified by the elementals as a uni-lang. The elementals go on to explain that the uni-lang has a weakness to attacks of the earth element, which turns out to be true.

As the group moves on towards the academy where Claudia believes her Uncle will be working, they are confronted by yet another elemental, a floating yellow one which introduces itself as Gust, the wind elemental which explains it was attracted to Claudia's lantern and wishes come along to learn more about it. Suddenly, Claudia and the now complete spectrum of elementals are set upon by a giant flower-like Fae creature and it's minions. The elementals know the giant Fae creature as a Vega Sugoth, and explain that the monsters minions must be dealt with first in order to defeat their master. After the elemental team triumphed over the bizarre creature, Claudia realized she could use the gear like items being dropped by the gremlins to tinker with her Uncles lantern which allows her to amplify the elemental powers of her new friends.

Finally arriving at the academy, the group find the location deserted, except for the observatory, which is being occupied by the lone Dr. Watson. He explains he is using this opportunity to study the Fea creatures, as he rummages through various texts on the creatures. Claudia realizes Dr. Watson is incapable of seeing the elementals, and asks if he knows where her Uncle has gone. Dr. Watson explains that the general populace was ordered by the mayor to gather in the church, but her Uncle was out in the Northern forest on a research expedition. As Claudia heads off to find the research team, Nixie states that most mortals either great the elementals with extreme devotion or complete terror, and notes that Claudia is the is the most pleasant "Sorceress" they've ever known.

As they reach the outskirts of town they battle a troll. Once the troll has been vanquished, Claudia is ambushed by a group of gremlins, who knock the lantern out of her hand. There is a sudden thundering sound and all the gremlins are instantly dispatched. Picking up her lantern, Claudia looks to see what has happened. Standing before her is a tall intimidating figure. Claudia asks the mans name, which he responds to by simply saying that he is trailing a troll. Claudia explains that she had just dispatched of a troll, to which the mysterious man simply laughs. Noticing the direction Claudia is headed, the man warns that the forest is cursed, and all who enter will be lost for only the Fae creatures can see the path. Undeterred, Cluadia continues on into the forest to find her Uncle Monte.

Gameplay

The core of the game play is based around matching elemental blocks on a grid board in the style of Bejeweled, by swapping blocks with those directly adjacent to them horizontally. When three or more of the same element are aligned vertically or horizontally, they disappear, their mana value is added to your pool and the remaining blocks fall to fill in the gaps, with new blocks being generated as they fall onto the grid. The blocks represent Earth, Fire, Wind and Water, as well as a physical movement block type which gets the character to walk forward to the next encounter or dodge incoming attacks when in combat, and a focus block type which, once four are cleared, cause the creation of a "mind gem". The mind gem can be clicked anytime to cleanse Claudia of status ailments such as blind and poison. A bonus chain can also be accumulated by having each move immediately cause an alignment of three or more blocks. As the bonus chain increases it gives a bonus to the amount of damage each attack causes. Any move that does not align three or more blocks resets the chain to zero, and eliminates any bonus to damage.

The puzzle element of the game is displayed on the lower half of the screen when engaged and fades out when the top half of the screen is selected to engage in combat. While in combat, player and enemy actions take place in real time. targets are selected be clicking on them and basic attacks are initiated by clicking on the desired elemental. Certain enemies have weaknesses to specific elements which result in a critical hit when attacked by them. These critical hits also result in a bonus multiplier applied to the score when combat is over. Bonus multipliers are also applied if the combat is completed within a certain time limit.

Once at least four of any one element has been stored it can be utilized in several ways dependent on which element type it is. When in combat, each element has a basic attack which can be targeted at any one enemy, or as one of various spells which can have various effects such as healing, shielding or cleansing Claudia, damaging and or applying status ailments to individual or multiple enemies. Once multiple elements get to a certain level, their mana can be combined to cast additional spells. When outside of combat, mana can be used by clicking on the elemental representations on the top half of the screen to apply certain temporary buffs to Claudia depending on their element:

• Fire: Bonus spell damage
• Water: health regeneration over time
• Earth: Increased defense
• Wind: Haste (one bonus mana for each block clear)

New abilities are obtained by using gears acquired from defeating Fea creatures to upgrade the lantern when at the world map. Each element is upgraded individually which also increases the characters overall level as well as the main characters HP and SP values. Each element enhances HP and SP a different amount than each other element.

The player eventually is allowed to learn a summon ability through lantern upgrades. Once the summon ability has been learned, a summon is initiated by creating a mind gem and then surrounding it on all four sides with mana blocks of the same element. The subsequent summon is then of the same element as the mana blocks that were used to create it. The summon is represented on the combat screen and attacks random enemies in the same direction as the players current target. The summon attacks whenever blocks of its element are cleared on the puzzle board, it also delivers critical hits on enemies who are weak to its element. The wind elemental summon is also capable of knocking flying enemies out of the air in the same fashion as standard wind attacks. The duration of the summon is determined by a constantly draining bar that appears next to the summon on the combat screen. An additional lantern upgrade allows for improved summons.

Individual Element Spells

Fire

• level 3: Fire Eater - Exchange stored fire mana for health
• level 4: Burning Wolf - Does damage to an area of enemies and applies additional burn damage over time
• level 7: Blessing of Flame- Shields Claudia and causes damage to attacking enemies

Wind

• level 3: Calming Breathes- Exchanges stored wind mana for health
• level 4: Tornado- Damage to an area of enemies, destroys enemy magic shields
• level 7: Guardian Wind- Damages all enemies, adds a wind mana for each enemy hit, removes paralysis and petrification effects

Earth

• level 3: Rock Biter- Exchanges stored earth mana for health
• level 4: Earths Gasp- Disables one enemy
• level 7: Quake- Damage to an area of enemies, shields Claudia

Water

• level 3: Dew Drinker- Exchange water mana for health
• level 4: Pure Spring- Damages an area of enemies, heals Claudia and removes poison and burn effects
• level 7: Lightning Storm- Removes fire spells, does random damage to enemies

Combined Element Spells

*requires character level 4 and each utilized element at level 3

Fire + Water

Draining Mist: Damages all enemies, reduces enemy magic attacks

Fire + Earth

Magma Strike: Damage to one enemy, reduces enemy magic defense

Fire + Wind

Burning Gale: Damage to an area of enemies and a damage over time burn effect

Water + Earth

Rain Forest Blessing: Heals over time, removes status ailments periodically

Water + Wind

Frozen Shard: Damages one enemy with a shard of ice which shatters and damages the area of enemies and applies a slow effect

Earth + Wind

Miasma: Inflicts poison on an area of enemies

PC System Requirements

• OS: Windows XP, Vista, 7
• Processor: Pentium or equivalent
• Memory: 270 MB
• Hard Disk Space: 76 MB
• Video Card: Direct X 8 or higher compatible
• DirectX®: Direct X 8 or higher